RECORD: Barlow, Nora ed. 1958. The autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882. With the original omissions restored. Edited and with appendix and notes by his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. London: Collins.

IN HIS old
age Charles Darwin wrote down
his recollections for his own amusement and the interest of his
children and their descendants. He finished the main narrative of 121
pages between May and August, 1876, writing as he tells us for an hour
on most afternoons. During the last six years of his life he enlarged
on what he had already written as fresh memories occurred to him,
inserting the sixty-seven further pages of Addenda into their
appropriate places. The present edition of the Autobiography
is a complete transcript of the whole manuscript, now housed in its old
leather binding in the Cambridge University Library.

The Autobiography first appeared in print as
part of Life and Letters of Charles Darwin edited by his son
Francis and published in 1887 by John Murray, five years after
Charles's death, when many omissions were considered necessary.

Two reprints have been published. In 1929 the Autobiography
was issued as a separate volume in The Thinkers Library, No. 7 (Watts
& Co.), with two appendices; the first a chapter of Reminiscences
by Francis Darwin, and the second a statement also by Francis Darwin of
his father's religious views. In 1950 G. G. Simpson brought out a
volume entitled Charles Darwin's Autobiography, (Henry
Schuman, New York), which included an introductory essay by Simpson, The
Meaning of Darwin; the Reminiscences by Francis Darwin,
and Notes and Letters of Charles Darwin depicting the growth of
the Origin of Species. All these texts were taken from the 1887
version, with no revision from the original manuscript. Some excerpts,
however, from the unpublished passages have recently appeared, now that
the manuscript is available to students.

I have followed the original closely, restoring omissions
amounting to nearly six thousand words, and correcting many trivial
errors and alterations that had crept into the earlier rendering; and
where necessary I have changed erratic punctuation and filled in purely
formal abbreviations, both of which checked smooth reading. Throughout,
Charles Darwin's parentheses are in round brackets; my own additions
are indicated by square ones. Footnotes in Francis Darwin's edition of
the Autobiography are initialled F. D., those added by me are
initialled N. B. To maintain the continuity of the text, I have not
marked the earlier omissions as they occur, but there is a page and
line reference to the more important at the end of the book for those
who wish to trace them.

An Appendix and Notes enlarge on matters arising in the
text, and include unpublished letters. The Samuel Butler controversy
has been given at considerable length in Part Two of the Appendix,
where to some it may appear over-emphasised. But I felt that the
unpublished letters threw a further light on the complex story, so
often misunderstood. Moreover it has a wider interest as the sequel to
Charles Darwin's views on the early evolutionists.

My thanks are due to Sir Charles Darwin, who let me keep
the bound volume of the manuscript for many months before it was handed
over to the Cambridge University Library. The Librarian has allowed me
facilities for a final revision and I am indebted to him for his
kindness, and to the helpfulness of Mr. R. V. Kerr and to Mr. Pilgrim.

Help has come from many quarters; from my husband and from
my sons; from my sister, Mrs. Rees Thomas; and from my cousins, Mrs.
Cornford and the late Mrs. Raverat; and from Miss Sybil Fountain, Mr.
Argent and Dr. Padel.

"If I lived twenty more years and was able to work, how I
should have to modify the Origin, and how much the views on
all points will have to be modified! Well it is a beginning, and that
is something …."

CHARLES DARWIN'S
own reflections on his
life and work, written between the ages of 67 and 73, must remain an
important work of reference, whether in the history of ideas or in a
portrait gallery of men. He still stands as the leading figure of that
revolution in scientific thought which followed the publication of the Origin
of Species in the middle of the 19th century, a revolution soon
involving all realms of knowledge. But posterity must continually
reassess the past, and accurate contemporary sources are specially
needed to provide insight into those stormy seasons when the wind of
accepted belief changes. The great figures must be seen in their own
setting and their own words must be heard, cleared of the posthumous
growth of later dogmas. In the Autobiography Charles Darwin
tells the story of the slow maturing of his mind and of his theories,
leading to the publication of the Linnean paper with A. R. Wallace in
1858, and of the Origin of Species in 1859.

The time has come for restoring the suppressions made in
1887. The occasional astringency of some passages had to be censored
seventy years ago out of deference to the feelings of friends; now
these comments not only seem harmless, but are revealing flashes
lighting up the past.

The major suppressions, however, arose from the memory of
the intense feelings roused after the publication of the Origin,
and still alive in the early eighties, when Francis Darwin was working
at Life and Letters. The family was, in fact, divided
concerning the publication of some of the passages relating to Charles
Darwin's religious beliefs. Francis, the editor, held the view that
complete publication was the right

course, whilst other members of the family felt strongly
that Charles's views, so privately recorded and not intended for
publication, would be damaging to himself in their crudity.

I write as one of the next generation, and it is difficult
now to imagine the state of tension that existed in what had always
seemed to us a solid and united phalanx of uncles and aunts. Yet soon
after Charles's death, before the publication of Life and Letters,
feelings were so strong that litigation was suggested. Leonard Darwin1
wrote to me in 1942:—"I am now the only person alive who can remember
what hot feelings were aroused at the time about the publication of the
Autobiography. Etty2 went so far as to speak
of legal proceedings to stop its publication. These could only have
been against Frank. She felt that on religious questions it was crude
and but half thought-out, and that in these circumstances it was not
only unfair to his memory to publish it, but that he would have
objected strongly. I should not be surprised if my Mother, unknown to
us all, put in the final word against it [publication of the suppressed
passages] to Frank." The suggestion of Mrs. Darwin's intervention is
supported by a comment in her own handwriting in a manuscript copy of
the Autobiography written out by Francis. This comment is
given as a footnote in its appropriate place. The underlining of the
word "speak" in Leonard's letter shows, I think, that he felt sure that
Henrietta, his sister, would never have taken legal action.
Nevertheless it is clear that opinions were divided and feelings ran
high in this united family, perhaps best explained by a divided loyalty
amongst the children between the science of their father and the
religion of their mother; though the differences of view that existed
caused no estrangement between the parents. This desire for reticence
was an aftermath of the scientific-religious storm that had raged in
the 60's and 70's with a fury that is now difficult to

understand. Charles's own shrinking from anything verging
on public or personal dispute, also found an echo in this family
difference after his death. Francis refers to Charles's religion and to
his reticence in Chap. VIII of Life and Letters, Vol. I,
considerable parts of which are drawn from the Autobiography,—passages
which were presumably passed by the family censorship, and which are
here reinstated in their right place.

Evolution has now been widely accepted, and the author of
the Origin of Species has been dead for over seventy years.
Omissions that were made so soon after his death should now be
replaced, for all available evidence is of value concerning those who
transform fundamental beliefs; how fundamental the change was it is
difficult to remember to-day, when it is hard to think back into the
pre-evolutionary era.

It is true that the coming of evolution had a long history
behind it; and there are those who would place Charles Darwin as a kind
of lucky number in this lineage of over two thousand years. The
unsubstantiated theory was in the air;—the time was ripe; and so on.
But the time is always ripe for the re-interpretation of theories in
the light of new vision and of new facts. This is the very province of
science. Darwin's whole trend of thought was against facile
speculation, yet theories flowed freely through his mind ready for the
essential tests of observation and experiment. He took twenty years of
combined theorising and fact-finding to prepare his case for evolution
in the face of a predominantly antagonistic world. He had to convince
himself by accumulated evidence before he could convince others, and
his doubts are as freely expressed as his convictions. His books lie
like stepping-stones to future knowledge. Dogmatic fixity was wholly
alien to his central idea.

Later discoveries have not undermined Darwin's position.
Mendelian genetics and advances in the studies of cytology and
variation have rather confirmed and supported the main

theme of the Origin of Species, so that his name
remains more closely linked than any other with the admission of
evolutionary beliefs into nineteenth-century orthodoxy. In the Autobiography
he is seen taking his place in the historic procession, and much is
revealed beyond the conscious statements. We can see the picture of the
Darwin-Wedgwood ancestry, both as genetic forebears and as
representatives of the Utilitarian and Whig traditions. We can watch
his dominating love of natural history changing from his youthful
passion for collecting and shooting, into the maturer passion of the
theoriser; we can watch his diffidence slowly giving way to scientific
assurance, though never to dogmatic finality. In the later editions of
the Origin Darwin showed an increasing belief in the
inheritance of acquired characters and in the importance of use and
disuse in the total picture of evolution, which led to some ambiguity
of expression as to their respective roles in relation to Natural
Selection.1 Darwin's faith in Natural Selection as the main
agent never wavered, but this admission of other causes showed his
awareness of difficulties still unsolved; indeed his vacillations may
prove his wisdom in the light of recent work.2

The passage from the Autobiography reproduced in
facsimile opposite, demonstrates these doubts, and shows how his
thoughts jostled each other for priority, leading to additions and
excisions. The passage occurs on p.p. 88, 89.

True portraits of great men in their settings are
specially needed at this time; for two schools of thought incline to
take the figures of history and mould them into demonstrations of their
own doctrines. To the Marxian the individual man is made by his
economic environment; the revolutionary, the artist, the inventor, is
pushed up like a bubble out of the seething economic need. The Freudian
likewise, though on

1 See C. Darlington's reprint of
the first edition of the Origin, Watts
& Co. 1950.

very different grounds, puts the genetic endowment at a
discount, and sees a man's achievement from the point of view of his
adjustment or maladjustment to his particular experience. Doubtless
both aspects have their validity, for there is no development for man
without environment, both of the body and the mind. Self-portraits have
the merit of disclosing the influences as well as the man. There may be
some to whom the Autobiography will prove what Charles Darwin
was not—a metaphysician or profound thinker beyond the scope of his
world-wide subject. But no one can read his own words and fail to
recognise a character of rare simplicity and complete integrity. The Autobiography
shows how it was that he altered the whole course of Victorian thought,
not by blazoning his discoveries nor by sudden iconoclasm, but rather
through searching insight and pondered judgments opening up vast fields
for further research.

A GERMAN EDITOR having written to me to ask for an account
of the development of my mind and character with some sketch of my
autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, and
might possibly interest my children or their children. I know that it
would have interested me greatly to have read even so short and dull a
sketch of the mind of my grandfather written by himself, and what he
thought and did and how he worked. I have attempted to write the
following account of myself, as if I were a dead man in another world
looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this difficult, for life
is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about my style of writing.

I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12th, 1809. I have
heard my Father say that he believed that persons with powerful minds
generally had memories extending far back to a very early period of
life. This is not my case for my earliest recollection goes back only
to when I was a few months over four years old, when we went

to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect some
events and places there with some little distinctness.

My mother died in July 1817, when I was a little over
eight years old, and it is odd that I can remember hardly anything
about her except her death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her
curiously constructed work-table. I believe that my forgetfulness is
partly due to my sisters, owing to their great grief, never being able
to speak about her or mention her name; and partly to her previous
invalid state. In the spring of this same year I was sent to a
day-school in Shrewsbury,1 where I staid a year. Before
going to school I was educated by my sister Caroline, but I doubt
whether this plan answered. I have been told that I was much slower in
learning than my younger sister Catherine, and I believe that I was in
many ways a naughty boy. Caroline was extremely kind, clever and
zealous; but she was too zealous in trying to improve me; for I clearly
remember after this long interval of years, saying to myself when about
to enter a room where she was—"What will she blame me for now?" and I
made myself dogged so as not to care what she might say.

By the time I went to this day-school my taste for natural
history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I
tried to make out the names of plants,

1 Kept by Rev. G. Case, minister
of the Unitarian Chapel in the High Street. Mrs. Darwin was a Unitarian
and attended Mr. Case's chapel, and my father as a little boy went
there with his elder sisters. But both he and his brother were
christened and intended to belong to the Church of England; and after
his early boyhood he seems usually to have gone to church and not to
Mr. Case's. It appears (St. James's Gazette, December 15,
1883) that a mural tablet has been erected to his memory in the chapel,
which is now known as the "Free Christian Church."—F D.

and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks,
coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting, which leads a man to
be a systematic naturalist, a virtuoso or a miser, was very strong in
me, and was clearly innate, as none of my sisters or brother ever had
this taste.

One little event during this year has fixed itself very
firmly in my mind, and I hope that it has done so from my conscience
having been afterwards sorely troubled by it; it is curious as showing
that apparently I was interested at this early age in the variability
of plants! I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton,1
who
afterwards become a well-known Lichenologist and botanist) that I could
produce variously coloured Polyanthuses and Primroses by watering them
with certain coloured fluids, which was of course a monstrous fable,
and had never been tried by me. I may here also confess that as a
little boy I was much given to inventing deliberate falsehoods, and
this was always done for the sake of causing excitement. For instance,
I once gathered much valuable fruit from my Father's trees and hid them
in the shrubbery, and then ran in breathless haste to spread the news
that I had discovered a hoard of stolen fruit.2

1 Rev. W. A. Leighton, who was a
schoolfellow of my father's at Mr. Case's school, remembers his
bringing a flower to school and saying that his mother had taught him
how by looking at the inside of the blossom the name of the plant could
be discovered. Mr. Leighton goes on, "This greatly roused my attention
and curiosity, and I inquired of him repeatedly how this could be
done?"—but his lesson was naturally enough not transmissible.—F. D.
William Allport Leighton (1805-1899), botanist, educated at St. John's
College, Cambridge; published Flora of Shropshire, Lichen Flora of
Great Britain, and other works.—N. B.

2 His Father wisely treated this
tendency not by making crimes of the fibs, but by making light of the
discoveries.—F. D.

About this time, or as I hope at a somewhat earlier age, I
sometimes stole fruit for the sake of eating it; and one of my schemes
was ingenious. The kitchen garden was kept locked in the evening, and
was surrounded by a high wall, but by the aid of neighbouring trees I
could easily get on the coping. I then fixed a long stick into the hole
at the bottom of a rather large flower-pot, and by dragging this
upwards pulled off peaches and plums, which fell into the pot and the
prizes were thus secured. When a very little boy I remember stealing
apples from the orchard, for the sake of giving them away to some boys
and young men who lived in a cottage not far off, but before I gave
them the fruit I showed off how quickly I could run and it is wonderful
that I did not perceive that the surprise and admiration which they
expressed at my powers of running, was given for the sake of the
apples. But I well remember that I was delighted at them declaring that
they had never seen a boy run so fast!

I remember clearly only one other incident during the
years whilst at Mr. Case's daily school—namely, the burial of a
dragoon-soldier; and it is surprising how clearly I can still see the
horse with the man's empty boots and carbine suspended to the saddle,
and the firing over the grave. This scene deeply stirred whatever
poetic fancy there was in me.1

1 It is curious that another
Shrewsbury boy should have been impressed by this military funeral; Mr.
Gretton, in his Memory's Harkback, says that the scene is so
strongly impressed on his mind that he could "walk straight to the spot
in St. Chad's churchyard where the poor fellow was buried." The soldier
was an Inniskilling Dragoon, and the officer in command had been
recently wounded at Waterloo, where his corps did good service against
the French Cuirassiers.—F. D.

In the summer of 1818 I went to Dr. Butler's great school
in Shrewsbury, and remained there for seven years till Mid-summer 1825,
when I was sixteen years old. I boarded at this school, so that I had
the great advantage of living the life of a true school-boy; but as the
distance was hardly more than a mile to my home, I very often ran there
in the longer intervals between the callings over and before locking up
at night. This I think was in many ways advantageous to me by keeping
up home affections and interests. I remember in the early part of my
school life that I often had to run very quickly to be in time, and
from being a fleet runner was generally successful; but when in doubt I
prayed earnestly to God to help me, and I well remember that I
attributed my success to the prayers and not to my quick running, and
marvelled how generally I was aided.

I have heard my father and elder sisters say that I had,
as a very young boy, a strong taste for long solitary walks; but what I
thought about I know not. I often became quite absorbed, and once,
whilst returning to school on the summit of the old fortifications
round Shrewsbury, which had been converted into a public foot-path with
no parapet on one side, I walked off and fell to the ground, but the
height was only seven or eight feet. Nevertheless the number of
thoughts which passed through my mind during this very short, but
sudden and wholly unexpected fall, was astonishing, and seem hardly
compatible with what physiologists have, I believe, proved about each
thought requiring quite an appreciable amount of time.

I must have been a very simple little fellow when I first
went to the school. A boy of the name of Garnett took me into a
cake-shop one day, and bought some cakes for which he did not pay, as
the shopman trusted him. When we came out I asked him why he did not
pay for them, and he instantly answered, "Why, do you not know that my
uncle left a great sum of money to the Town on condition that every
tradesman should give whatever was wanted without payment to anyone who
wore his old hat and moved it in a particular manner;" and he then
showed me how it was moved. He then went into another shop where he was
trusted, and asked for some small article, moving his hat in the proper
manner, and of course obtained it without payment. When we came out he
said, "Now if you like to go by yourself into that cake-shop (how well
I remember its exact position), I will lend you my hat, and you can get
whatever you like if you move the hat on your head properly." I gladly
accepted the generous offer, and went in and asked for some cakes,
moved the old hat, and was walking out of the shop, when the shop-man
made a rush at me, so I dropped the cakes and ran away for dear life,
and was astonished by being greeted with shouts of laughter by my false
friend Garnett.

I can say in my own favour that I was as a boy humane, but
I owed this entirely to the instruction and example of my sisters. I
doubt indeed whether humanity is a natural or innate quality. I was
very fond of collecting eggs, but I never took more than a single egg
out of a

bird's nest, except on one single occasion, when I took
all, not for their value, but from a sort of bravado.

I had a strong taste for angling, and would sit for any
number of hours on the bank of a river or pond watching the float; when
at Maer1 I was told that I could kill the worms with salt
and water, and from that day I never spitted a living worm, though at
the expense, probably, of some loss of success.

Once as a very little boy, whilst at the day-school, or
before that time, I acted cruelly, for I beat a puppy I believe, simply
from enjoying the sense of power; but the beating could not have been
severe, for the puppy did not howl, of which I feel sure as the spot
was near to the house. This act lay heavily on my conscience, as is
shown by my remembering the exact spot where the crime was committed.
It probably lay all the heavier from my love of dogs being then, and
for a long time afterwards, a passion. Dogs seemed to know this, for I
was an adept in robbing their love from their masters.

Nothing could have been worse for the development of my
mind than Dr. Butler's school, as it was strictly classical, nothing
else being taught except a little ancient geography and history. The
school as a means of education to me was simply a blank. During my
whole life I have been singularly incapable of mastering any language.
Especial attention was paid to verse-making, and this I could never do
well. I had many friends, and

1 The house of his uncle, Josiah
Wedgwood, the younger.—F. D. Here lived a family of Wedgwood cousins,
the youngest of whom became Charles's wife. Maer lay in the heart of
the Shropshire country, only a 20 mile's ride from Shrewsbury.—N. B.

got together a grand collection of old verses, which by
patching together, sometimes aided by other boys, I could work into any
subject. Much attention was paid to learning by heart the lessons of
the previous day; this I could effect with great facility learning
forty or fifty lines of Virgil or Homer, whilst I was in morning
chapel; but this exercise was utterly useless, for every verse was
forgotten in forty-eight hours. I was not idle, and with the exception
of versification, generally worked conscientiously at my classics, not
using cribs. The sole pleasure I ever received from such studies, was
from some of the odes of Horace, which I admired greatly. When I left
the school I was for my age neither high nor low in it; and I believe
that I was considered by all my masters and by my Father as a very
ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect. To my deep
mortification my father once said to me, "You care for nothing but
shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to
yourself and all your family." But my father, who was the kindest man I
ever knew, and whose memory I love with all my heart, must have been
angry and somewhat unjust when he used such words.

I may here add a few pages about my Father, who was in
many ways a remarkable man.1

He was about 6 feet 2 inches in height, with broad
shoulders, and very corpulent, so that he was the largest

1 This addition (ending p. 43)
was written in 1878 or later, and though included in Life and
Letters, Vol. I, p. 11, it was omitted in the Autobiography
of the Thinker's Library.—N. B.

man whom I ever saw. When he last weighed himself, he was
24 stone, but afterwards increased much in weight. His chief mental
characteristics were his powers of observation and his sympathy,
neither of which have I ever seen exceeded or even equalled. His
sympathy was not only with the distresses of others, but in a greater
degree with the pleasures of all around him. This led him to be always
scheming to give pleasure to others, and, though hating extravagance,
to perform many generous actions. For instance, Mr. B—, a small
manufacturer in Shrewsbury, came to him one day, and said he should be
bankrupt unless he could at once borrow £10,000, but that he was unable
to give any legal security. My father heard his reasons for believing
that he could ultimately repay the money, and from my Father's
intuitive perception of character felt sure that he was to be trusted.
So he advanced this sum, which was a very large one for him while
young, and was after a time repaid.

I suppose that it was his sympathy which gave him
unbounded power of winning confidence, and as a consequence made him
highly successful as a physician. He began to practise before he was
twenty-one years old, and his fees during the first year paid for the
keep of two horses and a servant. On the following year his practice
was larger, and so continued for above sixty years, when he ceased to
attend on any one. His great success as a doctor was the more
remarkable, as he told me that he at first hated his profession so much
that if he had been sure of the smallest pittance, or if his father

had given him any choice, nothing should have induced him
to follow it. To the end of his life, the thought of an operation
almost sickened him, and he could scarcely endure to see a person
bled—a horror which he has transmitted to me—and I remember the horror
which I felt as a schoolboy in reading about Pliny (I think) bleeding
to death in a warm bath. My Father told me two odd stories about
bleeding: one was that as a very young man he became a Freemason. A
friend of his who was a Freemason and who pretended not to know about
his strong feeling with respect to blood, remarked casually to him as
they walked to the meeting, "I suppose that you do not care about
losing a few drops of blood?" It seems that when he was received as a
member, his eyes were bandaged and his coat-sleeves turned up. Whether
any such ceremony is now performed I know not, but my Father mentioned
the case as an excellent instance of the power of imagination, for he
distinctly felt the blood trickling down his arm, and could hardly
believe his own eyes, when he afterwards could not find the smallest
prick on his arm.

A great slaughtering butcher from London once consulted my
grandfather, when another man very ill was brought in, and my
grandfather wished to have him instantly bled by the accompanying
apothecary. The butcher was asked to hold the patient's arm, but he
made some excuse and left the room. Afterwards he explained to my
grandfather that although he believed that he had killed with his own
hands more animals than any

other man in London, yet absurd as it might seem he
assuredly should have fainted if he had seen the patient bled.

Owing to my father's power of winning confidence, many
patients, especially ladies, consulted him when suffering from any
misery, as a sort of Father-Confessor. He told me that they always
began by complaining in a vague manner about their health, and by
practice he soon guessed what was really the matter. He then suggested
that they had been suffering in their minds, and now they would pour
out their troubles, and he heard nothing more about the body. Family
quarrels were a common subject. When gentlemen complained to him about
their wives, and the quarrel seemed serious, my Father advised them to
act in the following manner; and his advice always succeeded if the
gentleman followed it to the letter, which was not always the case. The
husband was to say to the wife that he was very sorry that they could
not live happily together,—that he felt sure that she would be happier
if separated from him—that he did not blame her in the least (this was
the point on which the man oftenest failed)—that he would not blame her
to any of her relations or friends and lastly that he would settle on
her as large a provision as he could afford. She was then asked to
deliberate on this proposal. As no fault had been found, her temper was
unruffled, and she soon felt what an awkward position she would be in,
with no accusation to rebut, and with her husband and not herself
proposing a separation. Invariably the lady begged her husband not to
think of

Owing to my father's skill in winning confidence he
received many strange confessions of misery and guilt. He often
remarked how many miserable wives he had known. In several instances
husbands and wives had gone on pretty well together for between twenty
and thirty years, and then hated each other bitterly: this he
attributed to their having lost a common bond in their young children
having grown up.

But the most remarkable power which my father possessed
was that of reading the characters, and even the thoughts of those whom
he saw even for a short time. We had many instances of this power, some
of which seemed almost supernatural. It saved my father from ever
making (with one exception, and the character of this man was soon
discovered) an unworthy friend. A strange clergyman came to Shrewsbury,
and seemed to be a rich man; everybody called on him, and he was
invited to many houses. My father called, and on his return home told
my sisters on no account to invite him or his family to our house; for
he felt sure that the man was not to be trusted. After a few months he
suddenly bolted, being heavily in debt, and was found out to be little
better than an habitual swindler. Here is a case of trustfulness which
not many men would have ventured on. An Irish gentleman, a complete
stranger, called on my father one day, and said that he had lost his
purse, and that it would be a serious inconvenience to him to wait in
Shrewsbury until he could

receive a remittance from Ireland. He then asked my father
to lend him £20, which was immediately done, as my father felt certain
that the story was a true one. As soon as a letter could arrive from
Ireland, one came with the most profuse thanks, and enclosing, as he
said, a £20 Bank of England note; but no note was enclosed. I asked my
father whether this did not stagger him, but he answered "not in the
least." On the next day another letter came with many apologies for
having forgotten (like a true Irishman) to put the note into his letter
of the day before.

A connection1 of my Father's consulted him
about his son who was strangely idle and would settle to no work. My
Father said "I believe that the foolish young man thinks that I shall
bequeath him a large sum of money. Tell him that I have declared to you
that I shall not leave him a penny." The Father of the youth owned with
shame that this preposterous idea had taken possession of his son's
mind; and he asked my Father how he could possibly have discovered it,
but my Father said he did not in the least know.

The Earl of — brought his nephew, who was insane but quite
gentle, to my father; and the young man's insanity led him to accuse
himself of all the crimes under heaven. When my Father afterwards
talked about the case with the uncle, he said, "I am sure that your
nephew is really guilty of…a heinous crime." Whereupon the Earl
of — exclaimed, "Good God, Dr. Darwin,

1 Robert's son-in-law, Henry
Parker, who had married his eldest daughter, Marianne, in 1824.—N.B.

who told you; we thought that no human being knew the fact
except ourselves!" My Father told me the story many years after the
event, and I asked him how he distinguished the true from the false
self-accusations; and it was very characteristic of my Father that he
said he could not explain how it was.

The following story shows what good guesses my Father
could make. Lord Sherburn,1 afterwards the first Marquis of
Lansdowne, was famous (as Macaulay somewhere remarks) for his knowledge
of the affairs of Europe, on which he greatly prided himself. He
consulted my Father medically, and afterwards harangued him on the
state of Holland. My father had studied medicine at Leyden, and one day
went a long walk into the country with a friend, who took him to the
house of a clergyman (we will say the Rev. Mr A—, for I have forgotten
his name), who had married an Englishwoman. My
father was very hungry, and there was little for luncheon except
cheese, which he could never eat. The old lady was surprised and
grieved at this, and assured my father that it was an excellent cheese,
and had been sent her from Bowood, the seat of Lord Sherburn. My father
wondered why a cheese should be sent her from Bowood, but thought
nothing more about it until it flashed across his mind many years
afterwards, whilst Lord Sherburn was talking about Holland. So he
answered, "I should think from what I saw of the Rev. Mr A—, that he
was a very able man and well acquainted with the state of Holland." My
father saw

that the Earl, who immediately changed the conversation,
was much startled. On the next morning my father received a note from
the Earl, saying that he had delayed starting on his journey, and
wished particularly to see my father. When he called, the Earl said,
"Dr. Darwin, it is of the utmost importance to me and to the Rev. Mr
A— to learn how you have discovered that he is the source of my
information about Holland." So my father had to explain the state of
the case, and he supposed that Lord Sherburn was much struck with his
diplomatic skill in guessing, for during many years afterwards he
received many kind messages from him through various friends. I think
that he must have told the story to his children; for Sir C. Lyell
asked me many years ago why the Marquis of Lansdowne (the son or
grandson of the first marquis) felt so much interest about me, whom he
had never seen, and my family. When forty new members (the forty
thieves as they were then called) were added to the Athenæum Club,
there was much canvassing to be one of them; and without my having
asked any one, Lord Lansdowne proposed me and got me elected. If I am
right in my supposition, it was a queer concatenation of events that my
father not eating cheese half-a-century before in Holland led to my
election as a member of the Athenæum.

Early in life my father occasionally wrote down a short
account of some curious event and conversation, which are enclosed in a
separate envelope.

with remarkable skill the course of any illness, and he
suggested endless small details of relief. I was told that a young
Doctor in Shrewsbury, who disliked my father, used to say that he was
wholly unscientific, but owned that his power of predicting the end of
an illness was unparalleled. Formerly when he thought that I should be
a doctor, he talked much to me about his patients. In the old days the
practice of bleeding largely was universal, but my father maintained
that far more evil was thus caused than good done; and he advised me if
ever I was myself ill not to allow any doctor to take from me more than
an extremely small quantity of blood. Long before typhoid fever was
recognised as distinct, my father told me that two utterly distinct
kinds of illness were confounded under the name of typhus fever. He was
vehement against drinking, and was convinced of both the direct and
inherited evil effects of alcohol when habitually taken even in
moderate quantity in a very large majority of cases.1 But he
admitted and advanced instances of certain persons, who could drink
largely during their whole lives without apparently suffering any evil
effects; and he believed that he could often beforehand tell who would
thus not suffer. He himself never drank a drop of any alcoholic fluid.
This remark reminds me of a case showing how a witness under the most
favourable circumstances may be wholly mistaken. A gentleman-farmer was
strongly urged by my father not to drink, and was encouraged by being
told that he

himself never touched any spirituous liquor. Whereupon the
gentleman said, "Come, come, Doctor, that won't do—though it is very
kind of you to say so for my sake—for I know that you take a very large
glass of hot gin and water every evening after your dinner."1
So my father asked him how he knew this. The man answered, "My cook was
your kitchen-maid for two or three years, and she saw the butler every
day prepare and take to you the gin and water." The explanation was
that my father had the odd habit of drinking hot water in a very tall
and large glass after his dinner; and the butler used first to put some
cold water in the glass, which the girl mistook for gin, and then
filled it up with boiling water from the kitchen boiler.

My father used to tell me many little things which he had
found useful in his medical practice. Thus ladies often cried much
while telling him their troubles, and thus caused much loss of his
precious time. He soon found that begging them to command and restrain
themselves, always made them weep the more, so that afterwards he
always encouraged them to go on crying, saying that this would relieve
them more than anything else, with the invariable result that they soon
ceased to cry, and he could hear what they had to say and give his
advice. When patients who were very ill, craved for some strange and
unnatural food, my father asked them what had put such an idea into
their heads: if they answered that they did not know, he would allow
them to try the food, and

1 This belief still survives,
and was mentioned to my brother in 1884 by an old inhabitant of
Shrewsbury.—F. D.

often with success, as he trusted to their having a kind
of instinctive desire; but if they answered that they had heard that
the food in question had done good to someone else, he firmly refused
his assent.

He gave one day an odd little specimen of human nature.
When a very young man he was called in to consult with the family
physician in the case of a gentleman of much distinction in Shropshire.
The old doctor told the wife that the illness was of such a nature that
it must end fatally. My father took a different view and maintained
that the gentleman would recover: he was proved quite wrong in all
respects, (I think by autopsy) and he owned his error. He was then
convinced that he should never again be consulted by this family; but
after a few months the widow sent for him, having dismissed the old
family doctor. My father was so much surprised at this, that he asked a
friend of the widow to find out why he was again consulted. The widow
answered her friend, that "she would never again see that odious old
doctor who said from the first that her husband would die, while Dr.
Darwin always maintained that he would recover!" In another case my
father told a lady that her husband would certainly die. Some months
afterwards he saw the widow who was a very sensible woman, and she
said, "You are a very young man, and allow me to advise you always to
give, as long as you possibly can, hope to any near relation nursing a
patient. You made me despair, and from that moment I lost strength." My
father said that he had often since seen the paramount importance, for
the sake of the

patient, of keeping up the hope and with it the strength
of the nurse in charge. This he sometimes found it difficult to do
compatibly with truth. One old gentleman, however, Mr. Pemberton,
caused him no such perplexity. He was sent for by Mr. Pemberton, who
said, "From all that I have seen and heard of you I believe you are the
sort of man who will speak the truth, and if I ask you will tell me
when I am dying. Now I much desire that you should attend me, if you
will promise, whatever I may say, always to declare that I am not going
to die." My father acquiesced on this understanding that his words
should in fact have no meaning.

My father possessed an extraordinary memory, especially
for dates, so that he knew, when he was very old the day of the birth,
marriage, and death of a multitude of persons in Shropshire; and he
once told me that this power annoyed him; for if he once heard a date
he could not forget it; and thus the deaths of many friends were often
recalled to his mind. Owing to his strong memory he knew an
extraordinary number of curious stories, which he liked to tell, as he
was a great talker. He was generally in high spirits, and laughed and
joked with every one—often with his servants—with the utmost freedom;
yet he had the art of making every one obey him to the letter. Many
persons were much afraid of him. I remember my father telling us one
day with a laugh, that several persons had asked him whether Miss
Piggott (a grand old lady in Shropshire), had called on him, so that at
last he enquired why they asked

him; and was told that Miss Piggott, whom my father had
somehow mortally offended, was telling everybody that she would call
and tell 'that fat old doctor very plainly what she thought of him.'
She had already called, but her courage had failed, and no one could
have been more courteous and friendly. As a boy, I went to stay at the
house of Major B—, whose wife was insane; and the poor creature, as
soon as she saw me, was in the most abject state of terror that I ever
saw, weeping bitterly and asking me over and over again, "Is your
father coming?" but was soon pacified. On my return home, I asked my
father why she was so frightened, and he answered he [was] very glad to
hear it, as he had frightened her on purpose, feeling sure that she
could be kept in safety and much happier without any restraint, if her
husband could influence her, whenever she became at all violent, by
proposing to send for Dr. Darwin; and these words succeeded perfectly
during the rest of her long life.

My father was very sensitive so that many small events
annoyed or pained him much. I once asked him, when he was old and could
not walk, why he did not drive out for exercise; and he answered,
"Every road out of Shrewsbury is associated in my mind with some
painful event." Yet he was generally in high spirits. He was easily
made very angry, but as his kindness was unbounded, he was widely and
deeply loved.

He was a cautious and good man of business, so that he
hardly ever lost money by any investment, and left to his children a
very large property. I remember a story,

showing how easily utterly false beliefs originate and
spread. Mr E—, a squire of one of the oldest families in Shropshire,
and head partner in a Bank, committed suicide. My father was sent for
as a matter of form, and found him dead. I may mention by the way, to
show how matters were managed in those old days, that because Mr E— was
a rather great man and universally respected, no inquest was held over
his body. My father, in returning home, thought it proper to call at
the Bank (where he had an account) to tell the managing partner of the
event, as it was not improbable it would cause a run on the bank. Well
the story was spread far and wide, that my father went into the bank,
drew out all his money, left the bank, came back again, and said, "I
may just tell you that Mr E— has killed himself," and then departed. It
seems that it was then a common belief that money withdrawn from a bank
was not safe, until the person had passed out through the door of the
bank. My father did not hear this story till some little time
afterwards, when the managing partner said that he had departed from
his invariable rule of never allowing any one to see the account of
another man, by having shown the ledger with my father's account to
several persons, as this proved that my father had not drawn out a
penny on that day. It would have been dishonourable in my father to
have used his professional knowledge for his private advantage.
Nevertheless the supposed act was greatly admired by some persons; and
many years afterwards, a gentleman remarked, "Ah, Doctor, what a
splendid man of business you were in

My father's mind was not scientific, and he did not try to
generalise his knowledge under general laws; yet he formed a theory for
almost everything which occurred. I do not think that I gained much
from him intellectually; but his example ought to have been of much
moral service to all his children. One of his golden rules (a hard one
to follow) was, "Never become the friend of any one whom you cannot
respect."

With respect to my Father's father, the author of the Botanic
Garden etc., I have put together all the facts which I could
collect in his published Life.1

Having said this much about my Father, I will add a few
words about my brother and sisters.

My brother Erasmus possessed a remarkably clear mind, with
extensive and diversified tastes and knowledge in literature, art, and
even in science. For a short time he collected and dried plants, and
during a somewhat longer time experimented in chemistry. He was
extremely agreeable, and his wit often reminded me of that in the
letters and works of Charles Lamb. He was very kind-hearted; but his
health from his boyhood had been weak, and as a consequence he failed
in energy. His spirits were not high, sometimes low, more especially
during early and middle manhood. He read much, even whilst a boy, and
at school encouraged me to read, lending me books. Our minds and tastes
were, however, so different that I do not think that I owe much to him

intellectually—nor to my four sisters, who possessed very
different characters, and some of them had strongly marked characters.
All were extremely kind and affectionate towards me during their whole
lives. I am inclined to agree with Francis Galton in believing that
education and environment produce only a small effect on the mind of
any one, and that most of our qualities are innate.

The above sketch of my brother's character was written
before that which was published in Carlyle's Remembrances, and which
appears to me to have little truth and no merit.

Looking back as well as I can at my character during my
school life, the only qualities which at this period promised well for
the future, were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal
for whatever interested me, and a keen pleasure in understanding any
complex subject or thing. I was taught Euclid by a private tutor, and I
distinctly remember the intense satisfaction which the clear
geometrical proofs gave me. I remember with equal distinctness the
delight which my uncle gave me (the father of Francis Galton) by
explaining the principle of the vernier of a barometer. With respect to
diversified tastes, independently of science, I was fond of reading
various books, and I used to sit for hours reading the historical plays
of Shakespeare, generally in an old window in the thick walls of the
school. I read also other poetry, such as the recently published poems
of Byron, Scott, and Thomson's Seasons. I mention this

because later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret,
all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare. In
connection with pleasure from poetry I may add that in 1822 a vivid
delight in scenery was first awakened in my mind, during a riding tour
on the borders of Wales, and which has lasted longer than any other
aesthetic pleasure.

Early in my school-days a boy had a copy of the Wonders
of the World, which I often read and disputed with other boys
about the veracity of some of the statements; and I believe this book
first gave me a wish to travel in remote countries, which was
ultimately fulfilled by the voyage of the Beagle. In the
latter part of my school life I became passionately fond of shooting,
and I do not believe that anyone could have shown more zeal for the
most holy cause than I did for shooting birds. How well I remember
killing my first snipe, and my excitement was so great that I had much
difficulty in reloading my gun from the trembling of my hands. This
taste long continued and I became a very good shot. When at Cambridge I
used to practise throwing up my gun to my shoulder before a
looking-glass to see that I threw it up straight. Another and better
plan was to get a friend to wave about a lighted candle, and then to
fire at it with a cap on the nipple, and if the aim was accurate the
little puff of air would blow out the candle. The explosion of the cap
caused a sharp crack, and I was told that the Tutor of the College
remarked, "What an extraordinary thing it is, Mr Darwin seems to spend
hours in cracking a horse-whip in his

I had many friends amongst the schoolboys, whom I loved
dearly, and I think that my disposition was then very affectionate.
Some of these boys were rather clever, but I may add on the principle
of "noscitur a socio" that not one of them ever became in the least
distinguished.

With respect to science, I continued collecting minerals
with much zeal, but quite unscientifically—all that I cared for was a
new named mineral, and I hardly attempted to classify them. I
must have observed insects with some little care, for when ten years
old (1819) I went for three weeks to Plas Edwards on the sea-coast in
Wales, I was very much interested and surprised at seeing a large black
and scarlet Hemipterous insect, many moths (Zygæna) and a Cicindela,
which are not found in Shropshire. I almost made up my mind to begin
collecting all the insects which I could find dead, for on consulting
my sister, I concluded that it was not right to kill insects for the
sake of making a collection. From reading White's Selborne I
took much pleasure in watching the habits of birds, and even made notes
on the subject. In my simplicity I remember wondering why every
gentleman did not become an ornithologist.

Towards the close of my school life, my brother worked
hard at chemistry and made a fair laboratory with proper apparatus in
the tool-house in the garden, and I was allowed to aid him as a servant
in most of his experiments. He made all the gases and many com-

pounds, and I read with care several books on chemistry,
such as Henry and Parkes' Chemical Catechism. The subject
interested me greatly, and we often used to go on working till rather
late at night. This was the best part of my education at school, for it
showed me practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact
that we worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it was
an unprecedented fact, I was nick-named "Gas." I was also once publicly
rebuked by the head-master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time over
such useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a "poco curante,"1
and as I did not understand what he meant it seemed to me a fearful
reproach.

As I was doing no good at school, my father wisely took me
away at a rather earlier age than usual, and sent me (October 1825) to
Edinburgh University1 with my brother, where I stayed for
two years or sessions. My brother was completing his medical studies,
though I do not believe he ever really intended to practise, and I was
sent there to commence them. But soon after this period I became
convinced from various small circumstances that my father would leave
me property enough to subsist on with some comfort, though I never
imagined that I should be so rich a man as I am; but my belief was
sufficient to check any strenuous effort to learn medicine.

The instruction at Edinburgh was altogether by

1 He lodged at Mrs. Mackay's, 11
Lothian Street. What little the records of Edinburgh University can
reveal has been published in the Edinburgh Weekly Dispatch,
May 22, 1888; and in the St. James's Gazette, February 16,
1888. From the latter journal it appears that he and his brother
Erasmus made more use of the library than was usual among the students
of their time.—F. D.

1 A "poco curane" is interested in small things, while being indifferent to important things.

Lectures, and these were intolerably dull, with the
exception of those on chemistry by Hope;1 but to my mind
there are no advantages and many disadvantages in lectures compared
with reading. Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a
winter's morning are something fearful to remember. Dr. Munro made his
lectures on human anatomy as dull, as he was himself, and the subject
disgusted me. It has proved one of the greatest evils in my life that I
was not urged to practice dissection, for I should soon have got over
my disgust; and the practice would have been invaluable for all my
future work. This has been an irremediable evil, as well as my
incapacity to draw. I also attended regularly the clinical wards in the
Hospital. Some of the cases distressed me a good deal, and I still have
vivid pictures before me of some of them; but I was not so foolish as
to allow this to lessen my attendance. I cannot understand why this
part of my medical course did not interest me in a greater degree; for
during the summer before coming to Edinburgh I began attending some of
the poor people, chiefly children and women in Shrewsbury: I wrote down
as full an account as I could of the cases with all the symptoms, and
read them aloud to my father, who suggested further enquiries, and
advised me what medicines to give, which I made up myself. At one time
I had at least a dozen patients, and I felt a keen interest in the work.1
My father, who was by far the

best judge of character whom I ever knew, declared that I
should make a successful physician,—meaning by this, one who got many
patients. He maintained that the chief element of success was exciting
confidence; but what he saw in me which convinced him that I should
create confidence I know not. I also attended on two occasions the
operating theatre in the hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very bad
operations, one on a child, but I rushed away before they were
completed. Nor did I ever attend again, for hardly any inducement would
have been strong enough to make me do so; this being long before the
blessed days of chloroform. The two cases fairly haunted me for many a
long year.

My Brother staid only one year at the University, so that
during the second year I was left to my own resources; and this was an
advantage, for I became well acquainted with several young men fond of
natural science. One of these was Ainsworth,1 who afterwards
published his travels in Assyria: he was a Wernerian2
geologist and knew a little about many subjects, but was superficial
and very glib with his tongue. Dr. Coldstream3 was a very
different young man, prim, formal, highly religious and most
kind-hearted: he afterwards published some good zoological articles. A
third young

2 Abraham Gottlob Werner,
1750-1817, geologist; adherent of the Neptunian theory—that
all rocks
were deposited as precipitates from water.—N. B.

3 Dr. Coldstream died September
17, 1863; see Crown 16mo. Book Tract, No. 19, of the Religious Tract
Society (no date).—F. D. This footnote is given In The Thinkers
Library Edition, not in Life and Letters.—N. B.

man was Hardie, who would I think have made a good
botanist, but died early in India. Lastly, Dr. Grant,1 my
senior by several years, but how I became acquainted with him I cannot
remember: he published some first-rate zoological papers, but after
coming to London as Professor in University College, he did nothing
more in science—a fact which has always been inexplicable to me. I knew
him well; he was dry and formal in manner, but with much enthusiasm
beneath this outer crust. He one day, when we were walking together
burst forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. I
listened in silent astonishment, and as far as I can judge, without any
effect on my mind. I had previously read the Zoönomia of my
grandfather, in which similar views are maintained, but without
producing any effect on me. Nevertheless it is probable that the
hearing rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have
favoured my upholding them under a different form in my Origin of
Species. At this time I admired greatly the Zoönomia;
but on reading it a second time after an interval of ten or fifteen
years, I was much disappointed, the proportion of speculation being so
large to the facts given.2

Drs. Grant and Coldstream attended much to marine Zoology,
and I often accompanied the former to collect

1 Robert Edmund Grant,
1793-1874, Professor of comparative anatomy and zoology at London
University 1827-1874; F.R.S. 1836. T. H. Huxley writes of Grant
thus:—"Within the ranks of the biologists at that time (1851-8) I met
nobody, except Dr. Grant, of University College who had a word to say
for Evolution; and his advocacy was not calculated to advance the
cause." Life and Letters, Vol. II, p. 188.—N.
B.

animals in the tidal pools, which I dissected as well as I
could. I also became friends with some of the Newhaven fishermen, and
sometimes accompanied them when they trawled for oysters, and thus got
many specimens. But from not having had any regular practice in
dissection, and from possessing only a wretched microscope my attempts
were very poor. Nevertheless I made one interesting little discovery,
and read about the beginning of the year 1826 [actually 27 March 1827], a short paper on the
subject before the Plinian Socy. This was that the so-called ova of
Flustra had the power of independent movement by means of cilia, and
were in fact larvæ. In another short paper I showed that little
globular bodies which had been supposed to be the young state of Fucus
loreus were the egg-cases of the worm-like Pontobdella
muricata.

The Plinian Society1 was encouraged and I
believe founded by Professor Jameson:2 it consisted of
students and met in an underground room in the University for the sake
of reading papers on natural science and discussing them. I used
regularly to attend and the meetings had a good effect on me in
stimulating my zeal and giving me new congenial acquaintances. One
evening a poor young man got up and after stammering for a prodigious
length of time, blushing crimson, he at last slowly got out the words,
"Mr. President, I have forgotten what I was going to say" The poor
fellow

1 The society was founded in
1823, and expired about 1848 (Edinburgh Weekly Dispatch, May
22, 1888).—F.D

2 Robert Jameson, 1774-1854,
Regius professor of natural history and Keeper of the Museum at
Edinburgh 1804-1854. Founded the Wernerian Society, 1808.—N. B.

looked quite overwhelmed, and all the members were so
surprised that no one could think of a word to say to cover his
confusion. The papers which were read to our little society were not
printed, so that I had not the satisfaction of seeing my paper in
print; but I believe Dr. Grant noticed my small discovery in his
excellent memoir on Flustra.

I was also a member of the Royal Medical Society, and
attended pretty regularly, but as the subjects were exclusively medical
I did not much care about them. Much rubbish was talked there, but
there were some good speakers, of whom the best was the present Sir J.
Kay-Shuttleworth.1 Dr. Grant took me occasionally to the
meetings of the Wernerian Society, where various papers on natural
history were read, discussed, and afterwards published in the
Transactions. I heard Audubon2 deliver there some
interesting discourses on the habits of N. American birds, sneering
somewhat unjustly at Waterton.3 By the way, a negro lived in
Edinburgh, who had travelled with Waterton and gained his livelihood by
stuffing birds, which he did excellently; he gave me lessons for
payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant
and intelligent man.

1 James Phillips
Kay-Shuttleworth, 1st Baronet, 1804-1877, M.D., Edinburgh, 1827;
Assistant Poor-law Commissioner 1835; first Secretary of the Committee
of Council of Education, 1839-49; member of scientific commissions,
etc.—N. B.

2 John James Audubon, 1780-1851.
Ornithologist and author of The Birds of America, and The
Quadrupeds of North America.—N.
B.

Mr. Leonard Horner1 also took me once to a
meeting of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where I saw Sir Walter Scott
in the chair as President, and he apologised to the meeting as not
feeling fitted for such a position. I looked at him and at the whole
scene with some awe and reverence; and I think it was owing to this
visit during my youth and to my having attended the Royal Medical
Society, that I felt the honour of being elected a few years ago an
honorary member of both these Societies, more than any other similar
honour. If I had been told at that time that I should one day have been
thus honoured, I declare that I should have thought it as ridiculous
and improbable, as if I had been told that I should be elected King of
England.

During my second year in Edinburgh I attended Jameson's
lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The
sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as
I lived to read a book on Geology or in any way to study the science.
Yet I feel sure that I was prepared for a philosophical treatment of
the subject; for an old Mr Cotton in Shropshire who knew a good deal
about rocks, had pointed out to me, two or three years previously a
well-known large erratic boulder in the town of Shrewsbury, called the
bell-stone; he told me that there was no rock of the same kind nearer
than Cumberland or Scotland, and he solemnly assured me that the world
would come to an end before anyone would be able to explain how

1 Leonard Horner, 1785-1864.
Geologist and educationalist, helped to organise London Institution,
1827, took active part in Factory Acts.—N. B.

this stone came where it now lay. This produced a deep
impression on me and I meditated over this wonderful stone. So that I
felt the keenest delight when I first read of the action of icebergs in
transporting boulders, and I gloried in the progress of Geology.
Equally striking is the fact that I, though now only sixty-seven years
old, heard Professor Jameson, in a field lecture at Salisbury Craigs,
discoursing on a trap-dyke, with amygdaloidal margins and the strata
indurated on each side, with volcanic rocks all around us, and say that
it was a fissure filled with sediment from above, adding with a sneer
that there were men who maintained that it had been injected from
beneath in a molten condition. When I think of this lecture, I do not
wonder that I determined never to attend to Geology.

From attending Jameson's lectures, I became acquainted
with the curator of the museum, Mr. Macgillivray,1 who
afterwards published a large and excellent book on the birds of
Scotland. He had not much the appearance or manners of the gentleman. I
had much interesting natural-history talk with him, and he was very
kind to me. He gave me some rare shells, for I at that time collected
marine mollusca, but with no great zeal.

My summer vacations during these two years were wholly
given up to amusements, though I always had some book in hand, which I
read with interest. During the summer of 1826, I took a long walking
tour with

1 William Macgillivray,
1796-1852. Conservator of the Royal College of Surgeons Museum,
Edinburgh, 1831-41. Professor of Natural History, Aberdeen, 1841.
Author of A History of British Birds.—N. B.

two friends with knapsacks on our backs through North
Wales. We walked thirty miles most days, including one day the ascent
of Snowdon. I also went with my sister Caroline a riding tour in North
Wales, a servant with saddle-bags carrying our clothes. The autumns
were devoted to shooting, chiefly at Mr. Owen's at Woodhouse, and at my
Uncle Jos's1, at Maer. My zeal was so great that I used to
place my shooting boots open by my bed-side when I went to bed, so as
not to lose half-a-minute in putting them on in the morning; and on one
occasion I reached a distant part of the Maer estate on the 20th of
August for black-game shooting, before I could see: I then toiled on
with the gamekeeper the whole day through thick heath and young Scotch
firs. I kept an exact record of every bird which I shot throughout the
whole season. One day when shooting at Woodhouse with Captain Owen, the
eldest son and Major Hill, his cousin, afterwards Lord Berwick, both of
whom I liked very much, I thought myself shamefully used, for every
time after I had fired and thought that I had killed a bird, one of the
two acted as if loading his gun and cried out, "You must not count that
bird, for I fired at the same time," and the gamekeeper perceiving the
joke, backed them up. After some hours they told me the joke, but it
was no joke to me for I had shot a large number of birds, but did not
know how many, and could not add them to my list, which I used to do by
making a knot in a piece of string tied to a button-hole. This my
wicked friends had perceived.

How I did enjoy shooting, but I think that I must have
been half-consciously ashamed of my zeal, for I tried to persuade
myself that shooting was almost an intellectual employment; it required
so much skill to judge where to find most game and to hunt the dogs
well.

One of my autumnal visits to Maer in 1827 was memorable
from meeting there Sir J. Mackintosh,1 who was the best
converser I ever listened to. I heard afterwards with a glow of pride
that he had said, "There is something in that young man that interests
me." This must have been chiefly due to his perceiving that I listened
with much interest to everything which he said, for I was as ignorant
as a pig about his subjects of history, politicks and moral philosophy.
To hear of praise from an eminent person, though no doubt apt or
certain to excite vanity, is, I think, good for a young man, as it
helps to keep him in the right course.

My visits to Maer during these two and the three
succeeding years were quite delightful, independently of the autumnal
shooting. Life there was perfectly free; the country was very pleasant
for walking or riding; and in the evening there was much very agreeable
conversation, not so personal as it generally is in large family
parties, together with music. In the summer the whole family used often
to sit on the steps of the old portico, with the flower-garden in
front, and with the

1 Sir James Mackintosh,
1765-1832, philosopher and historian. Had studied medicine at
Edinburgh. He and Josiah Wedgwood of Maer married two of the Allen
sisters, so there was connection by marriage between the families.—N. B.

steep wooded bank, opposite the house, reflected in the
lake, with here and there a fish rising or a water-bird paddling about.
Nothing has left a more vivid picture on my mind than these evenings at
Maer. I was also attached to and greatly revered my Uncle Jos: he was
silent and reserved so as to be a rather awful man; but he sometimes
talked openly with me.1 He was the very type of an upright
man with the clearest judgment. I do not believe that any power on
earth could have made him swerve an inch from what he considered the
right course. I used to apply to him in my mind, the well-known ode of
Horace, now forgotten by me, in which the words "nec vultus tyranni,
&c.,"2 come in.

Cambridge, 1828-1831

AFTER HAVING spent two sessions in Edinburgh, my father
perceived or he heard from my sisters, that I did not like the thought
of being a physician, so he proposed that I should become a clergyman.
He was very properly vehement against my turning an idle sporting man,
which then seemed my probable destination. I asked for some

1 Sydney Smith was a frequent
visitor at Maer, and Mrs. Litchfield quotes her mother's memory of a
speech of his:—"Wedgwood's an excellent man—it is a pity he hates his
friends." Emma Darwin, Vol. I, p. 74.—N. B.

time to consider, as from what little I had heard and
thought on the subject I had scruples about declaring my belief in all
the dogmas of the Church of England; though otherwise I liked the
thought of being a country clergyman. Accordingly I read with care Pearson
on the Creed and a few other books on divinity; and as I did not
then in the least doubt the strict and literal truth of every word in
the Bible, I soon persuaded myself that our Creed must be fully
accepted. It never struck me how illogical it was to say that I
believed in what I could not understand and what is in fact
unintelligible. I might have said with entire truth that I had no wish
to dispute any dogma; but I never was such a fool as to feel and say
'credo quia incredibile'.

Considering how fiercely I have been attacked by the
orthodox it seems ludicrous that I once intended to be a clergyman. Nor
was this intention and my father's wish ever formally given up, but
died a natural death when on leaving Cambridge I joined the Beagle
as Naturalist. If the phrenologists are to be trusted, I was well
fitted in one respect to be a clergyman. A few years ago the
Secretaries of a German psychological society asked me earnestly by
letter for a photograph of myself; and some time afterwards I received
the proceedings of one of the meetings in which it seemed that the
shape of my head had been the subject of a public discussion, and one
of the speakers declared that I had the bump of Reverence developed
enough for ten Priests.

As it was decided that I should be a clergyman, it was
necessary that I should go to one of the English

universities and take a degree; but as I had never opened
a classical book since leaving school, I found to my dismay that in the
two intervening years I had actually forgotten, incredible as it may
appear, almost everything which I had learnt even to some few of the
Greek letters. I did not therefore proceed to Cambridge at the usual
time in October, but worked with a private tutor in Shrewsbury and went
to Cambridge after the Christmas vacation, early in 1828. I soon
recovered my school standard of knowledge, and could translate easy
Greek books, such as Homer and the Greek Testament with moderate
facility.

During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time
was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as
completely as at Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics, and
even went during the summer of 1828 with a private tutor (a very dull
man) to Barmouth, but I got on very slowly. The work was repugnant to
me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early
steps in algebra. This impatience was very foolish, and in after years
I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to
understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics;
for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense. But I do not believe
that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade. With respect
to Classics I did nothing except attend a few compulsory college
lectures, and the attendance was almost nominal. In my second year I
had to work for a month or two to pass the Little Go, which I did
easily. Again in my last

year I worked with some earnestness for my final degree of
B.A., and brushed up my Classics together with a little Algebra and
Euclid, which latter gave me much pleasure, as it did whilst at school.
In order to pass the B.A. examination, it was, also, necessary to get
up Paley's Evidences of Christianity, and his Moral
Philosophy. This was done in a thorough manner, and I am convinced
that I could have written out the whole of the Evidences with
perfect correctness, but not of course in the clear language of Paley.
The logic of this book and as I may add of his Natural Theology
gave me as much delight as did Euclid. The careful study of these
works, without attempting to learn any part by rote, was the only part
of the Academical Course which, as I then felt and as I still believe,
was of the least use to me in the education of my mind. I did not at
that time trouble myself about Paley's premises; and taking these on
trust I was charmed and convinced by the long line of argumentation. By
answering well the examination questions in Paley, by doing Euclid
well, and by not failing miserably in Classics, I gained a good place
among the οἱ πολλοί, or
crowd
of men who do not go in for honours.
Oddly enough I cannot remember how high I stood, and my memory
fluctuates between the fifth, tenth, or twelfth name on the list.1

Public lectures on several branches were given in the
University, attendance being quite voluntary; but I was so sickened
with lectures at Edinburgh that I did not

even attend Sedgwick's1 eloquent and
interesting lectures. Had I done so I should probably have become a
geologist earlier than I did. I attended, however, Henslow's2
lectures on Botany, and liked them much for their extreme clearness,
and the admirable illustrations; but I did not study botany. Henslow
used to take his pupils, including several of the older members of the
University, field excursions, on foot, or in coaches to distant places,
or in a barge down the river, and lectured on the rarer plants or
animals which were observed. These excursions were delightful.

Although as we shall presently see there were some
redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted
there and worse than wasted. From my passion for shooting and for
hunting and when this failed, for riding across country I got into a
sporting set, including some dissipated low-minded young men. We used
often to dine together in the evening, though these dinners often
included men of a higher stamp, and we sometimes drank too much, with
jolly singing and playing at cards afterwards. I know that I ought to
feel ashamed of days and evenings thus spent, but as some of my friends
were very pleasant and we were all in the highest spirits, I cannot
help looking back to these times with much pleasure.3

But I am glad to think that I had many other friends of a
widely different nature. I was very intimate with Whitley1,
who was afterwards Senior Wrangler, and we used continually to take
long walks together. He inoculated me with a taste for pictures and
good engravings, of which I bought some. I frequently went to the
Fitzwilliam Gallery, and my taste must have been fairly good, for I
certainly admired the best pictures, which I discussed with the old
curator. I read also with much interest Sir J. Reynolds' book. This
taste, though not natural to me, lasted for several years and many of
the pictures in the National Gallery in London gave me much pleasure;
that of Sebastian del Piombo exciting in me a sense of sublimity.

I also got into a musical set, I believe by means of my
warm-hearted friend Herbert,2 who took a high wrangler's
degree. From associating with these men and hearing them play, I
acquired a strong taste for music, and used very often to time my walks
so as to hear on week days the anthem in King's College Chapel. This
gave me intense pleasure, so that my backbone would sometimes shiver. I
am sure that there was no affectation or mere imitation in this taste,
for I used generally to go by myself to King's College, and I sometimes
hired the chorister boys to sing in my rooms. Nevertheless I am so
utterly destitute of an ear, that I cannot perceive a discord, or keep
time and hum a tune correctly; and it is

My musical friends soon perceived my state, and sometimes
amused themselves by making me pass an examination, which consisted in
ascertaining how many tunes I could recognise, when they were played
rather more quickly or slowly than usual. 'God save the King' when thus
played was a sore puzzle. There was another man with almost as bad an
ear as I had, and strange to say he played a little on the flute. Once
I had the triumph of beating him in one of our musical examinations.

But no pursuit at Cambridge was followed with nearly so
much eagerness or gave me so much pleasure as collecting beetles. It
was the mere passion for collecting, for I did not dissect them and
rarely compared their external characters with published descriptions,
but got them named anyhow. I will give a proof of my zeal: one day, on
tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in
each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to
lose, so that I popped the one which I held in my right hand into my
mouth. Alas it ejected some intensely acrid fluid, which burnt my
tongue so that I was forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost, as
well as the third one.

I was very successful in collecting and invented two new
methods; I employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off
old trees and place [it] in a large bag, and likewise to collect the
rubbish at the bottom

of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens,
and thus I got some very rare species. No poet ever felt more delight
at seeing his first poem published than I did at seeing in Stephen's Illustrations
of British Insects the magic words, "captured by C. Darwin, Esq."
I was introduced to entomology by my second cousin, W. Darwin Fox, a
clever and most pleasant man, who was then at Christ's College, and
with whom I became extremely intimate. Afterwards I became well
acquainted with and went out collecting, with Albert Way1 of
Trinity, who in after years became a well-known archæologist; also with
H. Thompson,2 of the same College, afterwards a leading
agriculturist, chairman of a great Railway, and Member of Parliament.
It seems therefore that a taste for collecting beetles is some
indication of future success in life!

I am surprised what an indelible impression many of the
beetles which I caught at Cambridge have left on my mind. I can
remember the exact appearance of certain posts, old trees and banks
where I made a good capture. The pretty Panagæus crux-major
was a treasure in those days, and here at Down I saw a beetle running
across a walk, and on picking it up instantly perceived that it
differed slightly from P. crux-major, and it turned out to be
P.quadripunctatus, which is only a variety or
closely allied species, differing from it very slightly in outline. I
had never seen in those old days Licinus alive, which to an uneducated
eye hardly differs from

many other black Carabidous beetles; but my sons found
here a specimen and I instantly recognised that it was new to me; yet I
had not looked at a British beetle for the last twenty years.

I have not as yet mentioned a circumstance which
influenced my whole career more than any other. This was my friendship
with Prof. Henslow. Before coming up to Cambridge, I had heard of him
from my brother as a man who knew every branch of science, and I was
accordingly prepared to reverence him. He kept open house once every
week,1 where all undergraduates and several older members of
the University, who were attached to science, used to meet in the
evening. I soon got, through Fox, an invitation, and went there
regularly. Before long I became well acquainted with Henslow, and
during the latter half of my time at Cambridge took long walks with him
on most days; so that I was called by some of the dons "the man who
walks with Henslow"; and in the evening I was very often asked to join
his family dinner. His knowledge was great in botany, entomology,
chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. His strongest taste was to draw
conclusions from long-continued minute observations. His judgment was
excellent, and his whole mind well-balanced; but I do not suppose that
anyone would say that he possessed much original genius.

He was deeply religious, and so orthodox, that he

1 The Cambridge Ray Club,
which in 1887 attained its fiftieth anniversary, is the direct
descendant of these meetings, having been founded to fill the blank
caused by the discontinuance, in 1836, of Henslow's Friday evenings.
See Professor Babington's pamphlet, The Cambridge Ray Club,
1887.—F. D.

told me one day, he should be grieved if a single word of
the Thirty-nine Articles were altered. His moral qualities were in
every way admirable. He was free from every tinge of vanity or other
petty feeling; and I never saw a man who thought so little about
himself or his own concerns. His temper was imperturbably good, with
the most winning and courteous manners; yet, as I have seen, he could
be roused by any bad action to the warmest indignation and prompt
action. I once saw in his company in the streets of Cambridge almost as
horrid a scene, as could have been witnessed during the French
Revolution. Two body-snatchers had been arrested and whilst being taken
to prison had been torn from the constable by a crowd of the roughest
men, who dragged them by their legs along the muddy and stony road.
They were covered from head to foot with mud and their faces were
bleeding either from having been kicked or from the stones; they looked
like corpses, but the crowd was so dense that I got only a few
momentary glimpses of the wretched creatures. Never in my life have I
seen such wrath painted on a man's face, as was shown by Henslow at
this horrid scene. He tried repeatedly to penetrate the mob; but it was
simply impossible. He then rushed away to the mayor, telling me not to
follow him, to get more policemen. I forget the issue, except that the
two were got into the prison before being killed.

Henslow's benevolence was unbounded, as he proved by his
many excellent schemes for his poor parishioners, when in after years
he held the living of Hitcham. My

intimacy with such a man ought to have been and I hope was
an inestimable benefit. I cannot resist mentioning a trifling incident,
which showed his kind consideration. Whilst examining some
pollen-grains on a damp surface I saw the tubes exserted, and instantly
rushed off to communicate my surprising discovery to him. Now I do not
suppose any other Professor of Botany could have helped laughing at my
coming in such a hurry to make such a communication. But he agreed how
interesting the phenomenon was, and explained its meaning, but made me
clearly understand how well it was known; so I left him not in the
least mortified, but well pleased at having discovered for myself so
remarkable a fact, but determined not to be in such a hurry again to
communicate my discoveries.

Dr. Whewell1 was one of the older and
distinguished men who sometimes visited Henslow, and on several
occasions I walked home with him at night. Next to Sir J. Mackintosh he
was the best converser on grave subjects to whom I ever listened.
Leonard Jenyns,2 (grandson of the famous Soames Jenyns), who
afterwards published some good essays in Natural History, often staid
with Henslow, who was his brother-in-law. At first I disliked him from
his somewhat grim and

2 Mr. Jenyns (now Blomefield)
described the fish for the Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle;
and is author of a long series of papers, chiefly zoological. In 1887 he printed, for private circulation, an autobiographical sketch,
Chapters in my Life, and
subsequently some (undated) addenda. The
well-known Soame Jenyns was cousin to Mr. Jenyns father.—F. D. Charles
Darwin's suggested relationship is therefore wrong. Leonard Jenyns
almost accepted the offer of the post on the Beagle before it
was offered to Charles Darwin.—N. B.

sarcastic expression; and it is not often that a first
impression is lost; but I was completely mistaken and found him very
kindhearted, pleasant and with a good stock of humour. I visited him at
his parsonage on the borders of the Fens [Swaffham Bulbeck], and had
many a good walk and talk with him about Natural History. I became also
acquainted with several other men older than me, who did not care much
about science, but were friends of Henslow. One was a Scotchman,
brother of Sir Alexander Ramsay, and tutor of Jesus College; he was a
delightful man, but did not live for many years. Another was Mr Dawes,
afterwards Dean of Hereford and famous for his success in the education
of the poor. These men and others of the same standing, together with
Henslow, used sometimes to take distant excursions into the country,
which I was allowed to join and they were most agreeable.

Looking back, I infer that there must have been something
in me a little superior to the common run of youths, otherwise the
above-mentioned men, so much older than me and higher in academical
position, would never have allowed me to associate with them. Certainly
I was not aware of any such superiority, and I remember one of my
sporting friends, Turner, who saw me at work on my beetles, saying that
I should some day be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the notion
seemed to me preposterous.

During my last year at Cambridge I read with care and
profound interest Humboldt's Personal Narrative. This work
and Sir J. Herschel's Introduction to the Study

of Natural Philosophy stirred up in me a burning
zeal to add even the most humble contribution to the noble structure of
Natural Science. No one or a dozen other books influenced me nearly so
much as these two. I copied out from Humboldt long passages about
Teneriffe, and read them aloud on one of the above-mentioned
excursions, to (I think) Henslow, Ramsay and Dawes; for on a previous
occasion I had talked about the glories of Teneriffe, and some of the
party declared they would endeavour to go there; but I think that they
were only half in earnest. I was, however, quite in earnest, and got an
introduction to a merchant in London to enquire about ships; but the
scheme was of course knocked on the head by the voyage of the Beagle.

My summer vacations were given up to collecting beetles,
to some reading and short tours. In the autumn my whole time was
devoted to shooting, chiefly at Woodhouse and Maer, and sometimes with
young Eyton of Eyton.1 Upon the whole the three years which
I
spent at Cambridge were the most joyful in my happy life; for I was
then in excellent health, and almost always in high spirits.

As I had at first come up to Cambridge at Christmas, I was
forced to keep two terms after passing my final examination, at the
commencement of 1831; and Henslow then persuaded me to begin the study
of geology. Therefore on my return to Shropshire I examined sections

and coloured a map of parts round Shrewsbury. Professor
Sedgwick intended to visit N. Wales in the beginning of August to
pursue his famous geological investigation amongst the older rocks, and
Henslow asked him to allow me to accompany him.1 Accordingly
he came and slept at my Father's house.

A short conversation with him during this evening produced
a strong impression on my mind. Whilst examining an old gravel-pit near
Shrewsbury a labourer told me that he had found in it a large worn
tropical Volute shell, such as may be seen on the chimney-pieces of
cottages; and as he would not sell the shell I was convinced that he
had really found it in the pit. I told Sedgwick of the fact, and he at
once, said (no doubt truly) that it must have been thrown away by
someone into the pit; but then added, if really embedded there it would
be the greatest misfortune to geology, as it would overthrow all that
we know about the superficial deposits of the midland counties. These
gravel-beds belonged in fact to the glacial period, and in after years
I found in them broken arctic shells. But I was then utterly astonished
at Sedgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical
shell being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing
before had ever made me thoroughly realise, though I had read various
scien-

1 In connection with this tour
my father used to tell a story about Sedgwick: they had started from
their inn one morning, and had walked a mile or two, when Sedgwick
suddenly stopped, and vowed that he would return, being certain "that
damned scoundrel" (the waiter) had not given the chambermaid the
sixpence entrusted to him for the purpose. He was ultimately persuaded
to give up the project, seeing that there was no reason for suspecting
the waiter of perfidy.—F. D.

tific books, that science consists in grouping facts so
that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them.

Next morning we started for Llangollen, Conway, Bangor,
and Capel Curig. This tour was of decided use in teaching me a little
how to make out the geology of a country. Sedgwick often sent me on a
line parallel to his, telling me to bring back specimens of the rocks
and to mark the stratification on a map. I have little doubt that he
did this for my good, as I was too ignorant to have aided him. On this
tour I had a striking instance how easy it is to overlook phenomena,
however conspicuous, before they have been observed by anyone. We spent
many hours in Cwm Idwal, examining all the rocks with extreme care, as
Sedgwick was anxious to find fossils in them; but neither of us saw a
trace of the wonderful glacial phenomena all around us; we did not
notice the plainly scored rocks, the perched boulders, the lateral and
terminal moraines. Yet these phenomena are so conspicuous that, as I
declared in a paper published many years afterwards in the Philosophical
Magazine,1 a house burnt down by fire did not tell its
story more plainly than did this valley. If it had still been filled by
a glacier, the phenomena would have been less distinct than they now
are.

At Capel Curig I left Sedgwick and went in a straight line
by compass and map across the mountains to Barmouth, never following
any track unless it coincided with my course. I thus came on some
strange wild

places and enjoyed much this manner of travelling. I
visited Barmouth to see some Cambridge friends who were reading there,
and thence returned to Shrewsbury and to Maer for shooting; for at that
time I should have thought myself mad to give up the first days of
partridge-shooting for geology or any other science.

Voyage of the 'Beagle': from
Dec. 27, 1831 to Oct. 2, 1836

ON RETURNING home from my short geological tour in N.
Wales, I found a letter from Henslow, informing me that Captain Fitz-Roy1
was willing to give up part of his own cabin to any young man who would
volunteer to go with him without pay as naturalist to the Voyage of the
Beagle. I have given as I believe in my M.S. Journal an
account of all the circumstances which then occurred; I will here only
say that I was instantly eager to accept the offer, but my father
strongly objected, adding the words fortunate for me,—"If you can find
any man of common sense, who advises you to go, I will give my
consent." So I wrote that evening and refused the offer. On the next
morning I went to Maer to be ready for September 1st, and whilst out
shooting, my uncle1 sent

1 Robert
Fitz-Roy, 1805-1865. Vice admiral, hydrographer and meteorologist. Son
of Lord Charles Fitz-Roy, and grandson of the Duke of Grafton.
Instituted systems of weather-warnings—N. B.

for me, offering to drive me over to Shrewsbury and talk
with my father. As my uncle thought it would be wise in me to accept
the offer, and as my father always maintained that he was one of the
most sensible men in the world, he at once consented in the kindest
manner.1 I had been rather extravagant at Cambridge and to
console my father said, "that I should be deuced clever to spend more
than my allowance whilst on board the Beagle"; but he
answered with a smile, "But they all tell me you are very clever."

Next day I started for Cambridge to see Henslow, and
thence to London to see Fitz-Roy, and all was soon arranged. Afterwards
on becoming very intimate with Fitz-Roy, I heard that I had run a very
narrow risk of being rejected, on account of the shape of my nose! He
was an ardent disciple of Lavater, and was convinced that he could
judge a man's character by the outline of his features; and he doubted
whether anyone with my nose could possess sufficient energy and
determination for the voyage. But I think he was afterwards
well-satisfied that my nose had spoken falsely.

Fitz-Roy's character was a singular one, with many very
noble features: he was devoted to his duty, generous to a fault, bold,
determined, indomitably energetic, and an ardent friend to all under
his sway. He would undertake any sort of trouble to assist those whom
he thought deserved assistance. He was a handsome man,

1 See Note 2, p. 226; letters
from Charles Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood, refuting Dr. Robert's
objections to the voyage. How Dr. Robert Darwin's objections to the
Voyage were overcome.—N. B.

strikingly like a gentleman, with highly courteous
manners, which resembled those of his maternal uncle, the famous Lord
Castlereagh, as I was told by the Minister at Rio. Nevertheless he must
have inherited much in his appearance from Charles II, for Dr. Wallich
gave me a collection of photographs which he had made, and I was struck
with the resemblance of one to Fitz-Roy; on looking at the name, I
found it Ch. E. Sobieski Stuart, Count d'Albanie,1
illegitimate descendant of the same monarch.

Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. This was
shown not only by passion but by fits of long-continued moroseness
against those who had offended him. His temper was usually worst in the
early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect
something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame.
The junior officers when they relieved each other in the forenoon used
to ask "whether much hot coffee had been served out this morning,—"
which meant how was the Captain's temper? He was also somewhat
suspicious and occasionally in very low spirits, on one occasion
bordering on insanity. He seemed to me often to fail in sound judgment
or common sense. He was extremely kind to me, but was a man very
difficult to live with on the intimate terms which necessarily followed
from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had several
quarrels; for when out of temper he was utterly unreasonable. For
instance, early

1 The Count d'Albanie's claim to
Royal descent has been shown to be based on a myth. See the Quarterly
Review, 1847, vol. lxxxi. p. 83; also Hayward's Biographical
and Critical Essays, 1873, vol. ii. p. 201.—F. D.

in the voyage at Bahia in Brazil he defended and praised
slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a
great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them
whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all
answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he
thought that the answers of slaves in the presence of their master was
worth anything. This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I
doubted his word, we could not live any longer together. I thought that
I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news
spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first
lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified
by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with
them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by
sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would
continue to live with him. I remember another instance of his candour.
At Plymouth before we sailed, he was extremely angry with a dealer in
crockery who refused to exchange some article purchased in his shop:
the Captain asked the man the price of a very expensive set of china
and said "I should have purchased this if you had not been so
disobliging." As I knew that the cabin was amply stocked with crockery,
I doubted whether he had any such intention; and I must have shown my
doubts in my face, for I said not a word. After leaving the shop he
looked at me, saying You do not believe what I have said, and I was
forced to own

that it was so. He was silent for a few minutes and then
said You are right, and I acted wrongly in my anger at the blackguard.

At Conception in Chile, poor Fitz-Roy was sadly overworked
and in very low spirits; he complained bitterly to me that he must give
a great party to all the inhabitants of the place. I remonstrated and
said that I could see no such necessity on his part under the
circumstances. He then burst out into a fury, declaring that I was the
sort of man who would receive any favours and make no return. I got up
and left the cabin without saying a word, and returned to Conception
where I was then lodging. After a few days I came back to the ship and
was received by the Captain as cordially as ever, for the storm had by
that time quite blown over. The first Lieutenant, however, said to me:
"Confound you, philosopher, I wish you would not quarrel with the
skipper; the day you left the ship I was dead-tired (the ship was
refitting) and he kept me walking the deck till midnight abusing you
all the time." The difficulty of living on good terms with a Captain of
a Man-of-War is much increased by its being almost mutinous to answer
him as one would answer anyone else; and by the awe in which he is
held—or was held in my time, by all on board. I remember hearing a
curious instance of this in the case of the purser of the Adventure,—the
ship which sailed with the Beagle during the first voyage.
The Purser was in a store in Rio de Janeiro, purchasing rum for the
ship's company, and a little gentleman in plain clothes walked in. The
Purser said to him, "Now

Sir, be so kind as to taste this rum, and give me your
opinion of it." The gentleman did as he was asked, and soon left the
store. The store-keeper then asked the Purser, whether he knew that he
had been speaking to the Captain of a Line of Battleships which had
just come into the harbour. The poor Purser was struck dumb with
horror; he let the glass of spirit drop from his hand onto the floor,
and immediately went on board, and no persuasion, as an officer on the Adventure
assured me, could make him go on shore again for fear of meeting the
Captain after his dreadful act of familiarity.

I saw Fitz-Roy only occasionally after our return home,
for I was always afraid of unintentionally offending him, and did so
once, almost beyond mutual reconciliation. He was afterwards very
indignant with me for having published so unorthodox a book (for he
became very religious) as the Origin of Species. Towards the
close of his life he was as I fear, much impoverished, and this was
largely due to his generosity. Anyhow after his death a subscription
was raised to pay his debts. His end was a melancholy one, namely
suicide, exactly like that of his uncle Ld. Castlereagh, whom he
resembled closely in manner and appearance.

His character was in several respects one of the most
noble which I have ever known, though tarnished by grave blemishes.

The voyage of the Beagle has been by far the
most important event in my life and has determined my whole career; yet
it depended on so small a circumstance as

my uncle offering to drive me 30 miles to Shrewsbury,
which few uncles would have done, and on such a trifle as the shape of
my nose. I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real
training or education of my mind. I was led to attend closely to
several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of observation
were improved, though they were already fairly developed.

The investigation of the geology of all the places visited
was far more important, as reasoning here comes into play. On first
examining a new district nothing can appear more hopeless than the
chaos of rocks; but by recording the stratification and nature of the
rocks and fossils at many points, always reasoning and predicting what
will be found elsewhere, light soon begins to dawn on the district, and
the structure of the whole becomes more or less intelligible. I had
brought with me the first volume of Lyell's Principles of Geology,
which I studied attentively; and this book was of the highest service
to me in many ways. The very first place which I examined, namely St.
Jago in the Cape Verde islands, showed me clearly the wonderful
superiority of Lyell's manner of treating geology, compared with that
of any other author, whose works I had with me or ever afterwards read.1

Another of my occupations was collecting animals of all
classes, briefly describing and roughly dissecting many of the marine
ones; but from not being able to

1 The second volume of Lyell's Principles
of Geology reached him in Monte Video in 1832.—N. B.

draw and from not having sufficient anatomical knowledge
a great pile of MS. which I made during the voyage has proved almost
useless. I thus lost much time, with the exception of that spent in
acquiring some knowledge of the Crustaceans, as this was of service
when in after years I undertook a monograph of the Cirripedia.

During some part of the day I wrote my Journal, and took
much pains in describing carefully and vividly all that I had seen; and
this was good practice. My Journal served, also, in part as letters to
my home, and portions were sent to England, whenever there was an
opportunity.

The above various special studies were, however, of no
importance compared with the habit of energetic industry and of
concentrated attention to whatever I was engaged in, which I then
acquired. Everything about which I thought or read was made to bear
directly on what I had seen and was likely to see; and this habit of
mind was continued during the five years of the voyage. I feel sure
that it was this training which has enabled me to do whatever I have
done in science.

Looking backwards, I can now perceive how my love for
science gradually preponderated over every other taste. During the
first two years my old passion for shooting survived in nearly full
force, and I shot myself all the birds and animals for my collection;
but gradually I gave up my gun more and more, and finally altogether to
my servant, as shooting interfered with my work,

more especially with making out the geological structure
of a country. I discovered, though unconsciously and insensibly, that
the pleasure of observing and reasoning was a much higher one than that
of skill and sport. The primeval instincts of the barbarian slowly
yielded to the acquired tastes of the civilized man. That my mind
became developed through my pursuits during the voyage, is rendered
probable by a remark made by my father, who was the most acute observer
whom I ever saw, of a sceptical disposition, and far from being a
believer in phrenology; for on first seeing me after the voyage, he
turned round to my sisters and exclaimed, "Why, the shape of his head
is quite altered."

To return to the voyage. On September 11th (1831) I paid a
flying visit with Fitz-Roy to the Beagle at Plymouth. Thence
to Shrewsbury to wish my father and sisters a long farewell. On Oct.
24th, I took up my residence at Plymouth, and remained there until
December 27th when the Beagle finally left the shores of
England for her circumnavigation of the world. We made two earlier
attempts to sail, but were driven back each time by heavy gales. These
two months at Plymouth were the most miserable which I ever spent,
though I exerted myself in various ways. I was out of spirits at the
thought of leaving all my family and friends for so long a time, and
the weather seemed to me inexpressibly gloomy. I was also troubled with
palpitations and pain about the heart, and like many a young ignorant
man, especially one with a smattering of medical knowledge,

was convinced that I had heart-disease. I did not consult
any doctor, as I fully expected to hear the verdict that I was not fit
for the voyage, and I was resolved to go at all hazards.

I need not here refer to the events of the voyage—where we
went and what we did—as I have given a sufficiently full account in my
published Journal. The glories of the vegetation of the Tropics rise
before my mind at the present time more vividly than anything else.
Though the sense of sublimity, which the great deserts of Patagonia and
the forest-clad mountains of Tierra del Fuego excited in me, has left
an indelible impression on my mind. The sight of a naked savage in his
native land is an event which can never be forgotten. Many of my
excursions on horseback through wild countries, or in the boats, some
of which lasted several weeks, were deeply interesting; their
discomfort and some degree of danger were at that time hardly a
drawback and none at all afterwards. I also reflect with high
satisfaction on some of my scientific work, such as solving the problem
of coral-islands, and making out the geological structure of certain
islands, for instance, St. Helena. Nor1 must I pass over the
discovery of the singular relations of the animals and plants
inhabiting the several islands of the Galapagos archipelago, and of all
of them to the inhabitants of South America.

As far as I can judge of myself I worked to the utmost
during the voyage from the mere pleasure of investigation, and from my
strong desire to add a few facts to the

great mass of facts in natural science. But I was also
ambitious to take a fair place among scientific men,—whether
more
ambitious or less so than most of my fellow-workers I can form no
opinion.

The geology of St. Jago is very striking yet simple: a
stream of lava formerly flowed over the bed of the sea, formed of
triturated recent shells and corals, which it has baked into a hard
white rock. Since then the whole island has been upheaved. But the line
of white rock revealed to me a new and important fact, namely that
there had been afterwards subsidence round the craters, which had since
been in action, and had poured forth lava. It then first dawned on me
that I might perhaps write a book on the geology of the various
countries visited, and this made me thrill with delight. That was a
memorable hour to me, and how distinctly I can call to mind the low
cliff of lava beneath which I rested, with the sun glaring hot, a few
strange desert plants growing near, and with living corals in the tidal
pools at my feet. Later in the voyage Fitz-Roy asked to read some of my
Journal, and declared it would be worth publishing; so here was a
second book in prospect!

Towards the close of our voyage I received a letter whilst
at Ascension, in which my sisters told me that Sedgwick had called on
my father and said that I should take a place among the leading
scientific men. I could not at the time understand how he could have
learnt anything of my proceedings, but I heard (I believe afterwards)
that Henslow had read some of the letters which

I wrote to him before the Philosophical Soc. of Cambridge1
and had printed them for private distribution. My collection of fossil
bones, which had been sent to Henslow, also excited considerable
attention amongst palæontologists. After reading this letter I
clambered over the mountains of Ascension with a bounding step and made
the volcanic rocks resound under my geological hammer! All this shows
how ambitious I was; but I think that I can say with truth that in
after years, though I cared in the highest degree for the approbation
of such men as Lyell and Hooker, who were my friends, I did not care
much about the general public. I do not mean to say that a favourable
review or a large sale of my books did not please me greatly; but the
pleasure was a fleeting one, and I am sure that I have never turned one
inch out of my course to gain fame.

From my return to England Oct.
2, 1836 to my marriage Jan. 29, 1839

THESE TWO years and three months were the most active ones
which I ever spent, though I was occasionally unwell and so lost some
time. After going backwards and forwards several times between
Shrewsbury, Maer,

1 Read at the meeting held
November 16, 1835, and printed in a pamphlet of 31 pp. for distribution
among the members of the Society.—F. D.

Cambridge and London, I settled in lodgings at Cambridge1
on December 13th, where all my collections were under the care of
Henslow. I stayed here three months and got my minerals and rocks
examined by the aid of Prof. Miller.2

I began preparing my Journal of travels, which was not
hard work, as my MS. Journal had been written with care, and my chief
labour was making an abstract of my more interesting scientific
results. I sent also, at the request of Lyell, a short account of my
observations on the elevation of the coast of Chile to the Geological
Society.3

On March 7th, 1837, I took lodgings in Great Marlborough
Street in London and remained there for nearly two years until I was
married.4 During these two years I finished my Journal, read
several papers before the Geological Society, began preparing the MS.
for my Geological Observations and arranged for the
publication of the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle. In
July I opened my first note-book for facts in relation to the Origin
of Species, about which I had long reflected, and never ceased
working on for the next twenty years.

During these two years I also went a little into society,
and acted as one of the hon. secretaries of the Geological Society. I
saw a great deal of Lyell. One of his chief characteristics was his
sympathy with the work of others;

and I was as much astonished as delighted at the interest
which he showed when on my return to England I explained to him my
views on coral reefs. This encouraged me greatly, and his advice and
example had much influence on me. During this time I saw also a good
deal of Robert Brown1 "facile princeps botanicorum." I used
often to call and sit with him during his breakfast on Sunday
mornings, and he poured forth a rich treasure of curious observations
and acute remarks, but they almost always related to minute points, and
he never with me discussed large and general questions in science.

During these two years I took several short excursions as
a relaxation, and one longer one to the parallel roads of Glen Roy, an
account of which was published in the Philosophical Transactions.2
This paper was a great failure, and I am ashamed of it. Having been
deeply impressed with what I had seen of the elevation of the land in
S. America, I attributed the parallel lines to the action of the sea;
but I had to give up this view when Agassiz propounded his glacier-lake
theory. Because no other explanation was possible under our then state
of knowledge, I argued in favour of sea-action; and my error has been a
good lesson to me never to trust in science to the principle of
exclusion.

As I was not able to work all day at science I read a good
deal during these two years on various subjects, including some
metaphysical books, but I was not at

[all] well fitted for such studies. About this time I took
much delight in Wordsworth's and Coleridge's poetry, and can boast that
I read the Excursion twice through. Formerly Milton's Paradise
Lost had been my chief
favourite, and in my excursions during the
voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small
volume, I always chose Milton.

Religious Belief

DURING THESE two years1 I was led to think much
about religion. Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite
orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the
officers (though themselves orthodox) for quoting the Bible as an
unanswerable authority on some point of morality. I suppose it was the
novelty of the argument that amused them. But I had gradually come, by
this time, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false
history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign,
etc., etc., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a
revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of
the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian. The question then
continually rose before my mind and would not be banished,—is it
credible that if God were now to make a revelation to the Hindoos,
would he

permit it to be connected with the belief in Vishnu, Siva,
&c., as Christianity is connected with the Old Testament. This
appeared to me utterly incredible.

By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be
requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which
Christianity is supported,—that the more we know of the fixed laws of
nature the more incredible do miracles become,—that the men at that
time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible by
us,—that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written
simultaneously with the events,—that they differ in many important
details, far too important as it seemed to me to be admitted as the
usual inaccuracies of eye-witnesses;—by such reflections as these,
which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they
influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a
divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over
large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me.
Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can hardly be
denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which
we now put on metaphors and allegories.

But I was very unwilling to give up my belief;—I feel
sure of this for I can well remember often and often inventing
day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans and manuscripts
being discovered at Pompeii or elsewhere which confirmed in the most
striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. But I found it
more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagina-

tion, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince
me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last
complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never
since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.
I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be
true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the
men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and
almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished.

And this is a damnable doctrine.1

Although I did not think much about the existence of a
personal God until a considerably later period of my life, I will here
give the vague conclusions to which I have been driven. The old
argument of design in nature, as given by Paley, which formerly seemed
to me so conclusive, fails, now that the law of natural selection has
been discovered. We can no longer argue that, for instance, the
beautiful hinge of a bivalve shell must have been made by an
intelligent being, like the hinge of a door by man. There seems to be
no more design in the variability of organic beings and in the action
of natural selection, than in the course which the wind blows.
Everything in nature is the result of fixed laws.

1 Mrs. Darwin annotated this
passage (from "and have never since doubted"…. to "damnable doctrine")
in her own handwriting. She writes:—"I should dislike the passage in
brackets to be published. It seems to me raw. Nothing can be said too
severe upon the doctrine of everlasting punishment for disbelief—but
very few now wd. call that 'Christianity,' (tho' the words are there.)
There is the question of verbal inspiration comes in too. E. D." Oct.
1882. This was written six months after her husband's death, in a
second copy of the Autobiography in Francis's handwriting. The passage
was not published. See Introduction.—N. B.

But I have discussed this subject at the end of my book on
the Variation of Domestic Animals and Plants,1 and
the argument there given has never, as far as I can see, been answered.

But passing over the endless beautiful adaptations which
we everywhere meet with, it may be asked how can the generally
beneficent arrangement of the world be accounted for? Some writers
indeed are so much impressed with the amount of suffering in the world,
that they doubt if we look to all sentient beings, whether there is
more of misery or of happiness;—whether the world as a whole is a good
or a bad one. According to my judgment happiness decidedly prevails,
though this would be very difficult to prove. If the truth of this
conclusion be granted, it harmonises well with the effects which we
might expect from natural selection. If all the individuals of any
species were habitually to suffer to an extreme degree they would
neglect to propagate their kind; but we have no reason to believe that
this has ever or at least often occurred. Some other considerations,
moreover, lead to the belief that all sentient beings have been formed
so as to enjoy, as a general rule, happiness.

Every one who believes, as I do, that all the corporeal

1 My father asks whether we are
to believe that the forms are preordained of the broken fragments of
rock which are fitted together by man to build his houses. If not, why
should we believe that the variations of domestic animals or plants are
preordained for the sake of the breeder? "But if we give up the
principle in one case,…no shadow of reason can be assigned for the
belief that variations alike in nature and the result of the same
general laws, which have been the groundwork through natural selection
of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the world,
man included, were intentionally and specially guided."—Variations
of Animals and Plants, 1st Edit. vol. ii. p. 431.—F. D.

and mental organs (excepting those which are neither
advantageous or disadvantageous to the possessor) of all beings have
been developed through natural selection, or the survival of the
fittest, together with use or habit,1 will admit that these
organs have been formed so that their possessors may compete
successfully with other beings, and thus increase in number. Now an
animal may be led to pursue that course of action which is the most
beneficial to the species by suffering, such as pain, hunger, thirst,
and fear,—or by pleasure, as in eating and drinking and in the
propagation of the species, &c. or by both means combined, as in
the search for food. But pain or suffering of any kind, if long
continued, causes depression and lessens the power of action; yet is
well adapted to make a creature guard itself against any great or
sudden evil. Pleasurable sensations, on the other hand, may be long
continued without any depressing effect; on the contrary they stimulate
the whole system to increased action. Hence it has come to pass that
most or all sentient beings have been developed in such a manner
through natural selection, that pleasurable sensations serve as their
habitual guides. We see this in the pleasure from exertion, even
occasionally from great exertion of the body or mind,—in the pleasure
of our daily meals, and especially in the pleasure derived from
sociability and from loving our families. The sum of such pleasures as
these, which are habitual or frequently recurrent, give, as I can
hardly doubt, to

1 "together with use or habit"
added later. The many corrections and alterations in this sentence show
his increasing preoccupation with the possibility of other forces at
work besides Natural Selection. See P. 15—N. B.

most sentient beings an excess of happiness over misery,
although many occasionally suffer much. Such suffering, is quite
compatible with the belief in Natural Selection, which is not perfect
in its action, but tends only to render each species as successful as
possible in the battle for life with other species, in wonderfully
complex and changing circumstances.

That there is much suffering in the world no one disputes.
Some have attempted to explain this in reference to man by imagining
that it serves for his moral improvement. But the number of men in the
world is as nothing compared with that of all other sentient beings,
and these often suffer greatly without any moral improvement. A being
so powerful and so full of knowledge as a God who could create the
universe, is to our finite minds omnipotent and omniscient, and it
revolts our understanding to suppose that his benevolence is not
unbounded, for what advantage can there be in the sufferings of
millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? This
very old argument from the existence of suffering against the existence
of an intelligent first cause seems to me a strong one; whereas, as
just remarked, the presence of much suffering agrees well with the view
that all organic beings have been developed through variation and
natural selection.

At the present day the most usual argument for the
existence of an intelligent God is drawn from the deep inward
conviction and feelings which are experienced by most persons. But it
cannot be doubted that Hindoos,

Mahomadans and others might argue in the same manner and
with equal force in favour of the existence of one God, or of many
Gods, or as with the Buddists of no God. There are also many barbarian
tribes who cannot be said with any truth to believe in what we call
God: they believe indeed in spirits or ghosts, and it can be explained,
as Tyler and Herbert Spencer have shown, how such a belief would be
likely to arise.

Formerly I was led by feelings such as those just referred
to, (although I do not think that the religious sentiment was ever
strongly developed in me), to the firm conviction of the existence of
God, and of the immortality of the soul. In my Journal I wrote that
whilst standing in the midst of the grandeur of a Brazilian forest, 'it
is not possible to give an adequate idea of the higher feelings of
wonder, admiration, and devotion which fill and elevate the mind.' I
well remember my conviction that there is more in man than the mere
breath of his body. But now the grandest scenes would not cause any
such convictions and feelings to rise in my mind. It may be truly said
that I am like a man who has become colour-blind, and the universal
belief by men of the existence of redness makes my present loss of
perception of not the least value as evidence. This argument would be a
valid one if all men of all races had the same inward conviction of the
existence of one God; but we know that this is very far from being the
case. Therefore I cannot see that such inward convictions and feelings
are of any weight as evidence of what really exists. The state of mind
which grand scenes formerly

excited in me, and which was intimately connected with a
belief in God, did not essentially differ from that which is often
called the sense of sublimity; and however difficult it may be to
explain the genesis of this sense, it can hardly be advanced as an
argument for the existence of God, any more than the powerful though
vague and similar feelings excited by music.

With respect to immortality,1 nothing shows me
how strong and almost instinctive a belief it is, as the consideration
of the view now held by most physicists, namely that the sun with all
the planets will in time grow too cold for life, unless indeed some
great body dashes into the sun and thus gives it fresh life.—Believing
as I do that man in the distant future will be a far more perfect
creature than he now is, it is an intolerable thought that he and all
other sentient beings are doomed to complete annihilation after such
long-continued slow progress. To those who fully admit the immortality
of the human soul, the destruction of our world will not appear so
dreadful.

Another source of conviction in the existence of God,
connected with the reason and not with the feelings, impresses me as
having much more weight. This follows from the extreme difficulty or
rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe,
including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into
futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus
reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an
intelligent mind in some

This conclusion1 was strong in my mind about
the time, as far as I can remember, when I wrote the Origin of
Species; and it is since that time that it has very gradually with
many fluctuations become weaker. But then arises the doubt—can the mind
of man, which has, as I fully believe, been developed from a mind as
low as that possessed by the lowest animal, be trusted when it draws
such grand conclusions? May not these be the result of the connection
between cause and effect which strikes us as a necessary one, but
probably depends merely on inherited experience? Nor must we overlook
the probability of the constant inculcation in a belief in God on the
minds of children producing so strong and perhaps an inherited effect
on their brains not yet fully developed, that it would be as difficult
for them to throw off their belief in God, as for a monkey to throw off
its instinctive fear and hatred of a snake.2

1 Addendum of four lines added
later. In Charles's MS. copy the interleaved addition is in his eldest
son's hand. In Francis's copy it is in Charles's own hand.—N. B.

2 Added later. Emma Darwin wrote
and asked Frank to omit this sentence when he was editing the
Autobiography in 1885. The letter is as follows:—

"Emma Darwin to her
son Francis. 1885.

My dear Frank,

There is one sentence in the Autobiography
which I very much wish to
omit, no doubt partly because your father's opinion that all
morality has grown up by evolution is painful to me; but also because
where this sentence comes in, it gives one a sort of shock—and would
give an opening to say, however unjustly, that he considered all
spiritual beliefs no higher than hereditary aversions or likings, such
as the fear of monkeys towards snakes.

I think the disrespectful aspect would
disappear if the first part of
the conjecture was left without the illustration of the instance of
monkeys and snakes. I don't think you need consult William about this
omission, as it would not change the whole gist of the Autobiography. I
should wish if possible to avoid giving pain to your father's religious
friends who are

I cannot pretend to throw the least light on such abstruse
problems. The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by
us; and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic.

A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the
existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution
and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to
follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which
seem to him the best ones. A dog acts in this manner, but he does so
blindly. A man, on the other hand, looks forwards and backwards, and
compares his various feelings, desires and recollections. He then
finds, in accordance with the verdict of all the wisest men that the
highest satisfaction is derived from following certain impulses, namely
the social instincts. If he acts for the good of others, he will
receive the approbation of his fellow men and gain the love of those
with whom he lives; and this latter gain undoubtedly is the highest
pleasure on this earth. By degrees it will become intolerable to him to
obey his sensuous passions rather than his higher impulses, which when
rendered habitual may be almost called instincts. His reason may
occasionally tell him to act in opposition to the opinion of others,
whose approbation

___________

deeply attached to him,
and I picture to
myself the way that sentence would strike them, even those so liberal
as Ellen Tollett and Laura, much more Admiral Sullivan, Aunt Caroline,
&c., and even the old servants.

Yours, dear Frank,

E. D."

This letter appeared in Emma Darwin
by Henrietta Litchfield in the privately printed edition from the
Cambridge University Press in 1904. In John Murray's public edition of
1915 it was omitted.—N. B.

he will then not receive; but he will still have the solid
satisfaction of knowing that he has followed his innermost guide or
conscience.—As for myself I believe that I have acted rightly in
steadily following and devoting my life to science. I feel no remorse
from having committed any great sin, but have often and often regretted
that I have not done more direct good to my fellow creatures. My sole
and poor excuse is much ill-health and my mental constitution, which
makes it extremely difficult for me to turn from one subject or
occupation to another. I can imagine with high satisfaction giving up
my whole time to philanthropy, but not a portion of it; though this
would have been a far better line of conduct.

Nothing1 is more remarkable than the spread of
scepticism or rationalism during the latter half of my life. Before I
was engaged to be married, my father advised me to conceal carefully my
doubts, for he said that he had known extreme misery thus caused with
married persons. Things went on pretty well until the wife or husband
became out of health, and then some women suffered miserably by
doubting about the salvation of their husbands, thus making them
likewise to suffer. My father added that he had known during his whole
long life only three women who were sceptics; and it should be
remembered that he knew well a multitude of persons and possessed
extraordinary power of winning confidence. When I asked him who the
three

1 This paragraph has a note by
Charles:—"Written in 1879—copied out Apl. 22, 1881." Probably refers
also to previous paragraph.—N. B.

women were, he had to own with respect to one of them, his
sister-in-law Kitty Wedgwood, that he had no good evidence, only the
vaguest hints, aided by the conviction that so clear-sighted a woman
could not be a believer. At the present time, with my small
acquaintance, I know (or have known) several married ladies, who
believe very little more than their husbands. My father used to quote
an unanswerable argument, by which an old lady, a Mrs Barlow, who
suspected him of unorthodoxy, hoped to convert him:—" Doctor, I know
that sugar is sweet in my mouth, and I know that my Redeemer liveth."

From my marriage, Jan. 29,
1839, and residence in Upper Gower Street to our leaving London and
settling at Down, Sep. 14, 1842

YOU ALL know well your Mother, and what a good Mother she
has ever been to all of you. She has been my greatest blessing, and I
can declare that in my whole life I have never heard her utter one word
which I had rather have been unsaid. She has never failed in the
kindest sympathy towards me, and has borne with the utmost patience my
frequent complaints from ill-health and discomfort. I do not believe
she has ever missed an opportunity of doing a kind action to anyone
near her.

I marvel at my good fortune that she, so infinitely my
superior in every single moral quality, consented to be my wife. She
has been my wise adviser and cheerful comforter throughout life, which
without her would have been during a very long period a miserable one
from ill-health. She has earned the love and admiration of every soul
near her.1

I have indeed been most happy in my family, and I must say
to you my children that not one of you has ever given me one minute's
anxiety, except on the score of health. There are, I suspect, very few
fathers of five sons who could say this with entire truth. When you
were very young it was my delight to play with you all, and I think
with a sigh that such days can never return. From your earliest days to
now that you are grown up, you have all, sons and daughters, ever been
most pleasant, sympathetic and affectionate to us and to one another.
When all or most of you are at home (as, thank Heavens, happens pretty
frequently) no party can be, according to my taste, more agreeable, and
I wish for no other society. We have suffered only one very severe
grief in the death of Annie at Malvern on April 24th, 1851, when she
was just over ten years old. She was a most sweet and affectionate
child, and I feel sure would have grown into a delightful woman. But I
need say nothing here of her character, as I wrote a short

sketch of it shortly after her death. Tears still
sometimes come into my eyes, when I think of her sweet ways.1

During the three years and eight months whilst we resided
in London, I did less scientific work, though I worked as hard as I
possibly could, than during any other equal length of time in my life.
This was owing to frequently recurring unwellness and to one long and
serious illness. The greater part of my time, when I could do anything,
was devoted to my work on Coral Reefs, which I had begun
before my marriage, and of which the last proof-sheet was corrected on
May 6th, 1842. This book, though a small one, cost me twenty months of
hard work, as I had to read every work on the islands of the Pacific
and to consult many charts. It was thought highly of by scientific men,
and the theory therein given is, I think, now well established.

No other work of mine was begun in so deductive a spirit
as this; for the whole theory was thought out on the west coast of S.
America before I had seen a true coral reef. I had therefore only to
verify and extend my views by a careful examination of living reefs.
But it should be observed that I had during the two previous years been
incessantly attending to the effects on the shores of S. America of the
intermittent elevation of the land, together with denudation and the
deposition of sediment. This necessarily led me to reflect much on the
effects of subsidence, and it was easy to replace

in imagination the continued deposition of sediment by the
upward growth of coral. To do this was to form my theory of the
formation of barrier-reefs and atolls.

Besides my work on coral-reefs, during my residence in
London, I read before the Geological Society papers on the Erratic
Boulders of S. America,1 on Earthquakes,2 and on
the Formation by the Agency of Earth-worms of Mould.3 I also
continued to superintend the publication of the Zoology of the
Voyage of the Beagle. Nor did I ever intermit collecting facts
bearing on the origin of species; and I could sometimes do this when I
could do nothing else from illness.

In the summer of 1842 I was stronger than I had been for
some time and took a little tour by myself in N. Wales, for the sake of
observing the effects of the old glaciers which formerly filled all the
larger valleys. I published a short account of what I saw in the Philosophical
Magazine.4 This excursion interested me greatly, and it
was the last time I was ever strong enough to climb mountains or to
take long walks, such as are necessary for geological work.

During the early part of our life in London,5 I
was strong enough to go into general society, and saw a good deal of
several scientific men and other more or less distinguished men. I will
give my impressions with

I saw more of Lyell than of any other man both before and
after my marriage. His mind was characterised, as it appeared to me, by
clearness, caution, sound judgment and a good deal of originality. When
I made any remark to him on Geology, he never rested until he saw the
whole case clearly and often made me see it more clearly than I had
done before. He would advance all possible objections to my suggestion,
and even after these were exhausted would long remain dubious. A second
characteristic was his hearty sympathy with the work of other
scientific men.

On my return from the voyage of the Beagle, I
explained to him my views on coral-reefs, which differed from his, and
I was greatly surprised and encouraged by the vivid interest which he
showed. On such occasions, while absorbed in thought, he would throw
himself into the strangest attitudes, often resting his head on the
seat of a chair, while standing up. His delight in science was ardent,
and he felt the keenest interest in the future progress of mankind. He
was very kind-hearted, and thoroughly liberal in his religious beliefs
or rather disbeliefs; but he was a strong theist. His candour was
highly remarkable. He exhibited this by becoming a convert to the
Descent-theory, though he had gained much fame by opposing Lamarck's
views, and this after he had grown old. He reminded me that I had many
years before said to him, when discussing the opposition of the old
school of geologists to his new views, "What

a good thing it would be, if every scientific man was to
die when sixty years old, as afterwards he would be sure to oppose all
new doctrines." But he hoped that now he might be allowed to live. He
had a strong sense of humour and often told amusing anecdotes. He was
very fond of society, especially of eminent men, and of persons high in
rank; and this over-estimation of a man's position in the world, seemed
to me his chief foible. He used to discuss with Lady Lyell as a most
serious question, whether or not they should accept some particular
invitation. But as he would not dine out more than three times a week
on account of the loss of time, he was justified in weighing his
invitations with some care. He looked forward to going out oftener in
the evening with advancing years, as to a great reward; but the good
time never came, as his strength failed.

The science of Geology is enormously indebted to
Lyell—more so, as I believe, than to any other man who ever lived. When
I was starting on the voyage of the Beagle, the sagacious
Henslow, who, like all other geologists believed at that time in
successive cataclysms, advised me to get and study the first volume of
the Principles, which had then just been published, but on no
account to accept the views therein advocated. How differently would
any one now speak of the Principles! I am proud to remember
that the first place, namely St. Jago, in the Cape Verde Archipelago,
which I geologised, convinced me of the infinite superiority of Lyell's
views over those advocated in any other work known to me.

The powerful effects of Lyell's works could formerly be
plainly seen in the different progress of the science in France and
England. The present total oblivion of Elie de Beaumont's wild
hypotheses, such as his Craters of Elevation and Lines
of Elevation (which latter hypothesis I heard Sedgwick at the
Geolog. Soc. lauding to the skies), may be largely attributed to Lyell.

All the leading geologists were more or less known by me,
at the time when geology was advancing with triumphant steps. I liked
most of them, with the exception of Buckland,1 who though
very good-humoured and good-natured seemed to me a vulgar and almost
coarse man. He was incited more by a craving for notoriety, which
sometimes made him act like a buffoon, than by a love of science. He
was not, however, selfish in his desire for notoriety; for Lyell, when
a very young man, consulted him about communicating a poor paper to the
Geol. Soc. which had been sent him by a stranger, and Buckland
answered—"You had better do so, for it will be headed, 'Communicated by
Charles Lyell', and thus your name will be brought before the public."

The services rendered to geology by Murchison2
by his classification of the older formations cannot be over-estimated;
but he was very far from possessing a

1 William Buckland, 1784-1856,
Geologist, professor of mineralogy at Oxford, 1813; President of
Geological Society, 1824 and 1840.—N. B.

philosophical mind. He was very kind-hearted and would
exert himself to the utmost to oblige anyone. The degree to which he
valued rank was ludicrous, and he displayed this feeling and his vanity
with the simplicity of a child. He related with the utmost glee to a
large circle, including many mere acquaintances, in the rooms of the
Geolog. Soc. how the Czar Nicholas, when in London, had patted him on
the shoulder and had said, alluding to his geological work—"Mon ami,
Russia is grateful to you," and then Murchison added rubbing his hands
together, "The best of it was that Prince Albert heard it all." He
announced one day to the Council of the Geolog. Soc. that his great
work on the Silurian system was at last published; and he then looked
at all who were present and said, "You will every one of you find your
name in the Index," as if this was the height of glory.

I saw a good deal of Robert Brown, "facile Princeps
Botanicorum," as he was called by Humboldt; and before I was married I
used to go and sit with him almost every Sunday morning. He seemed to
me to be chiefly remarkable for the minuteness of his observations and
their perfect accuracy. He never propounded to me any large scientific
views in biology. His knowledge was extraordinarily great, and much
died with him, owing to his excessive fear of ever making a mistake. He
poured out his knowledge to me in the most unreserved manner, yet was
strangely jealous on some points. I called on him two or three times
before the voyage of the Beagle, and on one occasion he asked
me to look through a

microscope and describe what I saw. This I did, and
believe now that it was the marvellous currents of protoplasm in some
vegetable cell. I then asked him what I had seen; but he answered me,
who was then hardly more than a boy and on the point of leaving England
for five years, "That is my little secret." I suppose that he was
afraid that I might steal his discovery. Hooker told me that he was a
complete miser, and knew himself to be a miser, about his dried plants;
and he would not lend specimens to Hooker, who was describing the
plants of Tierra del Fuego, although well knowing that he himself would
never make any use of the collections from this country. On the other
hand he was capable of the most generous actions. When old, much out of
health and quite unfit for any exertion, he daily visited (as Hooker
told me) an old man-servant, who lived at a distance and whom he
supported, and read aloud to him. This is enough to make up for any
degree of scientific penuriousness or jealousy. He was rather given to
sneering at anyone who wrote about what he did not fully understand: I
remember praising Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences
to him, and he answered, "Yes, I suppose that he has read the prefaces
of very many books."

I often saw Owen,1 whilst living in London, and
admired him greatly, but was never able to understand his character and
never became intimate with him. After the publication of the Origin
of Species he became my

bitter enemy, not owing to any quarrel between us, but as
far as I could judge out of jealousy at its success. Poor dear Falconer,1
who was a charming man, had a very bad opinion of him, being convinced
that he was not only ambitious, very envious and arrogant, but
untruthful and dishonest. His power of hatred was certainly
unsurpassed. When in former days I used to defend Owen, Falconer often
said, "You will find him out some day," and so it has proved.

At a somewhat later period I became very intimate with
Hooker,2 who has been one of my best friends throughout
life. He is a delightfully pleasant companion and most kind-hearted.
One can see at once that he is honourable to the back-bone. His
intellect is very acute, and he has great power of generalisation. He
is the most untirable worker that I have ever seen, and will sit the
whole day working with the microscope, and be in the evening as fresh
and pleasant as ever. He is in all ways very impulsive and somewhat
peppery in temper; but the clouds pass away almost immediately. He once
sent me an almost savage letter from a cause which will appear
ludicrously small to an outsider, viz. because I maintained for a time
the silly notion that our coal-plants had lived in shallow water in the
sea. His indignation was all the greater because he could not pretend
that he should ever have suspected that the Mangrove (and a

1 Hugh Falconer, 1808-1865.
Palæontologist and botanist. Worked largely in India; appointed to
British Museum 1844 to arrange Indian fossils.—N. B.

2 Joseph Dalton Hooker,
1817-1911. Botanist and traveller, increased knowledge of geographical
distribution, and supported the Darwin-Wallace theory of Origin of
Species. F.R.S. 1847. Succeeded his father as Director of Kew
Gardens, 1865. Wrote Students' Flora of the British Isles and
other works. C.B. 1869; O.M. 1907, etc.—N. B.

few other marine plants which I named) had lived in the
sea, if they had been found only in a fossil state. On another occasion
he was almost equally indignant because I rejected with scorn the
notion that a continent had formerly extended between Australia and S.
America. I have known hardly any man more lovable than Hooker.

A little later I became intimate with Huxley. His mind is
as quick as a flash of lightning and as sharp as a razor. He is the
best talker whom I have known. He never writes and never says anything
flat. From his conversation no one would suppose that he could cut up
his opponents in so trenchant a manner as he can do and does do. He has
been a most kind friend to me and would always take any trouble for me.
He has been the mainstay in England of the principle of the gradual
evolution of organic beings. Much splendid work as he has done in
Zoology, he would have done far more, if his time had not been so
largely consumed by official and literary work, and by his efforts to
improve the education of the country. He would allow me to say anything
to him: many years ago I thought that it was a pity that he attacked so
many scientific men, although I believe that he was right in each
particular case, and I said so to him. He denied the charge
indignantly, and I answered that I was very glad to hear that I was
mistaken. We had been talking about his well-deserved attacks on Owen,
so I said after a time, "How well you have exposed Ehrenberg's
blunders;" he agreed and

added that it was necessary for science that such mistakes
should be exposed. Again after a time, I added: "Poor Agassiz has fared
ill under your hands." Again I added another name, and now his bright
eyes flashed on me, and he burst out laughing, anathematising me in
some manner. He is a splendid man and has worked well for the good of
mankind.

I may here mention a few other eminent men whom I have
occasionally seen, but I have little to say about them worth saying. I
felt a high reverence for Sir J. Herschel,1 and was
delighted to dine with him at his charming house at the C. of Good Hope
and afterwards at his London house. I saw him, also, on a few other
occasions. He never talked much, but every word which he uttered was
worth listening to. He was very shy and he often had a distressed
expression. Lady Caroline Bell, at whose house I dined at the C. of
Good Hope, admired Herschel much, but said that he always came into a
room as if he knew that his hands were dirty, and that he knew that his
wife knew that they were dirty.

I once met at breakfast at Sir R. Murchison's house, the
illustrious Humboldt, who honoured me by expressing a wish to see me. I
was a little disappointed with the great man, but my anticipations
probably were too high. I can remember nothing distinctly about our
interview, except that Humboldt was very cheerful and talked much.

I used to call pretty often on Babbage1 and
regularly attended his famous evening parties. He was always worth
listening to, but he was a disappointed and discontented man; and his
expression was often or generally morose. I do not believe that he was
half as sullen as he pretended to be. One day he told me that he had
invented a plan by which all fires could be effectively stopped, but
added,—"I shan't publish it—damn them all, let all their houses be
burnt." The all were the inhabitants of London. Another day he told me
that he had seen a pump on a road-side in Italy, with a pious
inscription on it to the effect that the owner had erected the pump for
the love of God and his country, that the tired wayfarer might drink.
This led Babbage to examine the pump closely and he soon discovered
that every time that a wayfarer pumped some water for himself, he
pumped a larger quantity into the owner's house. Babbage then
added—"There is only one thing which I hate more than piety, and that
is patriotism." But I believe that his bark was much worse than his
bite.

Herbert Spencer's conversation seemed to me very
interesting, but I did not like him particularly, and did not feel that
I could easily have become intimate with him. I think that he was
extremely egotistical. After reading any of his books, I generally feel
enthusiastic admiration for his transcendent talents, and have often
wondered whether in the distant future he would rank

with such great men as Descartes, Leibnitz, etc., about
whom, however, I know very little. Nevertheless I am not conscious of
having profited in my own work by Spencer's writings. His deductive
manner of treating every subject is wholly opposed to my frame of mind.
His conclusions never convince me: and over and over again I have said
to myself, after reading one of his discussions,—"Here would be a fine
subject for half-a-dozen years' work." His fundamental generalisations
(which have been compared in importance by some persons with Newton's
laws!)—which I daresay may be very valuable under a philosophical point
of view, are of such a nature that they do not seem to me to be of any
strictly scientific use. They partake more of the nature of definitions
than of laws of nature. They do not aid one in predicting what will
happen in any particular case. Anyhow they have not been of any use to
me.

Speaking of H. Spencer reminds me of Buckle,1
whom I once met at Hensleigh Wedgwood's. I was very glad to learn from
him his system of collecting facts. He told me that he bought all the
books which he read, and made a full index to each, of the facts which
he thought might prove serviceable to him, and that he could always
remember in what book he had read anything, for his memory was
wonderful. I then asked him how at first he could judge what facts
would be serviceable and he answered that he did not know, but that a
sort of instinct guided him. From this habit of making indices, he was

enabled to give the astonishing number of references on
all sorts of subjects, which may be found in his History of
Civilisation. This book I thought most interesting and read it
twice; but I doubt whether his generalisations are worth anything. H.
Spencer told me that he had never read a line of it! Buckle was a great
talker, and I listened to him without saying hardly a word, nor indeed
could I have done so, for he left no gaps. When Effie1 began
to sing, I jumped up and said that I must listen to her. This I suppose
offended him, for after I had moved away, he turned round to a friend,
and said (as was overheard by my brother), "Well Mr Darwin's books are
much better than his conversation." What he really meant was that I did
not properly appreciate his conversation.

Of other great literary men, I once met Sydney Smith at
Dean Milman's house. There was something inexplicably amusing in every
word which he uttered. Perhaps this was partly due to the expectation
of being amused. He was talking about Lady Cork, who was then extremely
old. This was the lady, who, as he said, was once so much affected by
one of his charity sermons, that she borrowed a guinea from a
friend to put into the Plate. He now said, "It is generally believed
that my dear old friend Lady Cork has been overlooked"; and he said
this
in such a manner that no one could for a moment doubt that he meant
that his dear old friend had been overlooked by the devil. How he
managed to express this I know not.

1 Euphemia Wedgwood, married T.
H. Farrer in 1873 as second wife.—N. B.

I likewise once met Macaulay at Lord Stanhope's (the
historian's) house,1 and as there was only one other man at
dinner, I had a grand opportunity of hearing him converse, and he was
very agreeable. He did not talk at all too much; nor indeed could such
a man talk too much, as long as he allowed others to turn the stream of
his conversation, and this he did allow.

Lord Stanhope once gave me a curious little proof of the
accuracy and fulness of Macaulay's memory: many historians used often
to meet at Lord Stanhope's house, and, in discussing various subjects,
they would sometimes differ from Macaulay, and formerly they often
referred to some book to see who was right; but latterly, as Lord
Stanhope noticed, no historian ever took this trouble, and whatever
Macaulay said was final.

On another occasion I met at Ld. Stanhope's house one of
his parties of historians and other literary men, and amongst them were
Motley2 and Grote.3 After luncheon I walked about
Chevening Park for nearly an hour with Grote, and was much interested
by his conversation and pleased by the simplicity and absence of all
pretension in his manners.

I met another set of great men at breakfast at Ld.
Stanhope's house in London. After breakfast was quite

2 John Lothrop Motley,
1814-1877. Born in Dorchester, Mass., but lived much in Europe, as the
materials for his historical work were not available in U.S.A.
Published History of the Dutch Republic in 1856.—N. B.

over, Monckton Milnes1 (Ld. Houghton now)
walked in, and after looking round, exclaimed—(justifying Sidney
Smith's nickname of "the cool of the evening") —"Well, I declare, you
are all very premature."

Long ago I dined occasionally with the old Earl Stanhope,
the father of the historian. I have heard that his father, the
democratic earl, well-known at the time of the French Revolution, had
his son educated as a blacksmith, as he declared that every man ought
to know some trade. The old Earl, whom I knew, was a strange man, but
what little I saw of him, I liked much. He was frank, genial, and
pleasant. He had strongly-marked features, with a brown complexion, and
his clothes, when I saw him, were all brown. He seemed to believe in
everything which was to others utterly incredible. He said one day to
me, "Why don't you give up your fiddle-faddle of geology and zoology,
and turn to the occult sciences?" The historian (then Ld. Mahon) seemed
shocked at such a speech to me, and his charming wife much amused.

The last man whom I will mention is Carlyle, seen by me
several times at my brother's house and two or three times at my own
house. His talk was very racy and interesting, just like his writings,
but he sometimes went on too long on the same subject. I remember a
funny dinner at my brother's, where, amongst a few others, were Babbage
and Lyell, both of whom liked to

talk. Carlyle, however, silenced every one by haranguing
during the whole dinner on the advantages of silence. After dinner,
Babbage, in his grimmest manner, thanked Carlyle for his very
interesting Lecture on Silence.

Carlyle sneered at almost every one. One day in my house
he called Grote's History "a fetid quagmire, with nothing
spiritual about it." I always thought, until his Reminiscences
appeared, that his sneers were partly jokes, but this now seems rather
doubtful. His expression was that of a depressed, almost despondent,
yet benevolent man; and it is notorious how heartily he laughed. I
believe that his benevolence was real, though stained by not a little
jealousy. No one can doubt about his extraordinary power of drawing
vivid pictures of things and men—far more vivid, as it appears to me,
than any drawn by Macaulay. Whether his pictures of men were true ones
is another question.

He has been all-powerful in impressing some grand moral
truths on the minds of men. On the other hand, his views about slavery
were revolting. In his eyes might was right. His mind seemed to me a
very narrow one; even if all branches of science, which he despised,
are excluded. It is astonishing to me that Kingsley should have spoken
of him as a man well fitted to advance science. He laughed to scorn the
idea that a mathematician, such as Whewell, could judge, as I
maintained he could, of Goethe's views on light. He thought it a most
ridiculous thing that any one should care whether a glacier moved a
little quicker or a little

slower, or moved at all. As far as I could judge, I never
met a man with a mind so ill adapted for scientific research.

Whilst living in London, I attended as regularly as I
could the meetings of several scientific societies, and acted as
secretary to the Geological Society. But such attendance, and ordinary
society, suited my health so badly that we resolved to live in the
country, which we both preferred and have never repented of.1

Residence at Down, from Sep.
14, 1842, to the present time, 1876

AFTER SEVERAL fruitless searches in Surrey and elsewhere,
we found this house and purchased it. I was pleased with the
diversified appearance of the vegetation proper to a chalk district,
and so unlike what I had been accustomed to in the Midland counties;
and still more pleased with the extreme quietness and rusticity of the
place. It is not, however, quite so retired a place as a writer in a
German periodical makes it, who says that my house can be approached
only by a mule-track! Our fixing ourselves here has answered admirably
in one way which we did not anticipate, namely, by being very
convenient for frequent visits from our children, who

Few persons can have lived a more retired life than we
have done. Besides short visits to the houses of relations, and
occasionally to the seaside or elsewhere, we have gone nowhere. During
the first part of our residence we went a little into society, and
received a few friends here; but my health almost always suffered from
the excitement, violent shivering and vomiting attacks being thus
brought on. I have therefore been compelled for many years to give up
all dinner-parties; and this has been somewhat of a deprivation to me,
as such parties always put me into high spirits. From the same cause I
have been able to invite here very few scientific acquaintances. Whilst
I was young and strong I was capable of very warm attachments, but of
late years, though I still have very friendly feelings towards many
persons, I have lost the power of becoming deeply attached to anyone,
not even so deeply to my good and dear friends Hooker and Huxley, as I
should formerly have been. As far as I can judge this grievous loss of
feeling has gradually crept over me, from the expectation of much
distress afterwards from exhaustion having become firmly associated in
my mind with seeing and talking with anyone for an hour, except my wife
and children.

My chief enjoyment and sole employment throughout life has
been scientific work; and the excitement from such work makes me for
the time forget, or drives quite away, my daily discomfort. I have
therefore nothing to record during the rest of my life, except the
publication

of my several books. Perhaps a few details how they arose
may be worth giving.

My Several
Publications

IN THE early part of 1844, my observations on the Volcanic
Islands visited during the voyage of the Beagle were
published. In 1845, I took much pains in correcting a new edition of my
Journal of Researches, which was originally published in 1839 as part of Fitz-Roy's work. The success of this my first literary child
always tickles my vanity more than that of any of my other books. Even
to this day it sells steadily in England and the United States, and has
been translated for the second time into German, and into French and
other languages. This success of a book of travels, especially of a
scientific one, so many years after its first publication, is
surprising. Ten thousand copies have now been sold in England of the
second edition. In 1846 my Geological Observations on South America
were published. I record in a little diary, which I have always kept,
that my three geological books (Coral Reefs included) consumed
four and a half years' steady work; "and now it is ten years since my
return to England. How much time have I lost by illness?" I have
nothing to say about these three books except that to my surprise new
editions have lately been called for.1

In October, 1846, I began to work on Cirripedia1.
When on the coast of Chile, I found a most curious form, which burrowed
into the shells of Concholepas, and which differed so much from all
other Cirripedes that I had to form a new sub-order for its sole
reception. Lately an allied burrowing genus has been found on the
shores of Portugal. To understand the structure of my new Cirripede I
had to examine and dissect many of the common forms: and this gradually
led me on to take up the whole group. I worked steadily on the subject
for the next eight years, and ultimately published two thick volumes,2
describing all the known living species, and two thin quartos on the
extinct species. I do not doubt that Sir E. Lytton Bulwer had me in his
mind when he introduces in one of his novels a Professor Long, who had
written two huge volumes on Limpets.

Although I was employed during eight years on this work,
yet I record in my diary that about two years out of this time was lost
by illness. On this account I went in 1848 for some months to Malvern
for hydropathic treatment, which did me much good, so that on my return
home I was able to resume work. So much was I out of health that when
my dear father died on November 13th, 1847,3 I was unable to
attend
his funeral or to act as one of his executors.

My work on the Cirripedia possesses, I think, con-

1 Barnacles.—N. B.

2 Published by the Ray
Society.—F. D.

3 The date of Dr. Robert's death
is given as 1848 in Life and Letters. In the MS. the date is
clearly written 1847—a curious error.—N. B.

siderable value, as besides describing several new and
remarkable forms, I made out the homologies of the various parts—I
discovered the cementing apparatus, though I blundered dreadfully about
the cement glands—and lastly I proved the existence in certain genera
of minute males complemental to and parasitic on the hermaphrodites.
This latter discovery has at last been fully confirmed; though at one
time a German writer was pleased to attribute the whole account to my
fertile imagination. The Cirripedes form a highly varying and difficult
group of species to class; and my work was of considerable use to me,
when I had to discuss in the Origin of Species the principles
of a natural classification. Nevertheless, I doubt whether the work was
worth the consumption of so much time.

From September 1854 onwards I devoted all my time to
arranging my huge pile of notes, to observing, and experimenting, in
relation to the transmutation of species. During the voyage of the Beagle
I had been deeply impressed by discovering in the Pampean formation
great fossil animals covered with armour like that on the existing
armadillos; secondly, by the manner in which closely allied animals
replace one another in proceeding southwards over the Continent; and
thirdly, by the South American character of most of the productions of
the Galapagos archipelago, and more especially by the manner in which
they differ slightly on each island of the group; none of these islands
appearing to be very ancient in a geological sense.

others, could be explained on the supposition that species
gradually become modified; and the subject haunted me. But it was
equally evident that neither the action of the surrounding conditions,
nor the will of the organisms (especially in the case of plants), could
account for the innumerable cases in which organisms of every kind are
beautifully adapted to their habits of life,—for instance, a woodpecker
or tree-frog to climb trees, or a seed for dispersal by hooks or
plumes. I had always been much struck by such adaptations, and until
these could be explained it seemed to me almost useless to endeavour to
prove by indirect evidence that species have been modified.

After my return to England it appeared to me that by
following the example of Lyell in Geology, and by collecting all facts
which bore in any way on the variation of animals and plants under
domestication and nature, some light might perhaps be thrown on the
whole subject. My first note-book was opened in July 1837. I worked on
true Baconian principles, and without any theory collected facts on a
wholesale scale, more especially with respect to domesticated
productions, by printed enquiries, by conversation with skilful
breeders and gardeners, and by extensive reading. When I see the list
of books of all kinds which I read and abstracted, including whole
series of Journals and Transactions, I am surprised at my industry. I
soon perceived that selection was the keystone of man's success in
making useful races of animals and plants. But how selection could be
applied to organisms living in a

In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after I had begun
my systematic enquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population,
and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which
everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of
animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances
favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones
to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new
species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I
was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time
to write even the briefest sketch of it. In June 1842 I first allowed
myself the satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of my theory
in pencil in 35 pages; and this was enlarged during the summer of 1844
into one of 230 pages, which I had fairly copied out and still possess.

But at that time I overlooked one problem of great
importance; and it is astonishing to me, except on the principle of
Columbus and his egg, how I could have overlooked it and its solution.
This problem is the tendency in organic beings descended from the same
stock to diverge in character as they become modified. That they have
diverged greatly is obvious from the manner in which species of all
kinds can be classed under genera, genera under families, families
under sub-orders, and so forth; and I can remember the very spot in the
road, whilst in my carriage, when to my joy the

solution occurred to me; and this was long after I had
come to Down. The solution, as I believe, is that the modified
offspring of all dominant and increasing forms tend to become adapted
to many and highly diversified places in the economy of nature.

Early in 1856 Lyell advised me to write out my views
pretty fully, and I began at once to do so on a scale three or four
times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in my Origin
of Species; yet it was only an abstract of the materials which I
had collected, and I got through about half the work on this scale. But
my plans were overthrown, for early in the summer of 1858 Mr Wallace,1
who was then in the Malay archipelago, sent me an essay On the
Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original Type;
and this essay contained exactly the same theory as mine. Mr Wallace
expressed the wish that if I thought well of his essay, I should send
it to Lyell for perusal.

The circumstances under which I consented at the request
of Lyell and Hooker to allow of an extract from my MS., together with a
letter to Asa Gray, dated September 5, 1857, to be published at the
same time with Wallace's Essay, are given in the Journal of the
Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1858, p. 45. I was at first
very unwilling to consent, as I thought Mr Wallace might consider my
doing so unjustifiable, for I did not then know how generous and noble
was his disposition. The extract from my MS. and the letter to Asa Gray

1Alfred Russell Wallace,
1823-1913, naturalist and traveller, author of various works on
geographical distribution and evolution. F.R.S. 1893.—N. B.

had neither been intended for publication, and were badly
written. Mr Wallace's essay, on the other hand, was admirably expressed
and quite clear. Nevertheless, our joint productions excited very
little attention, and the only published notice of them which I can
remember was by Professor Haughton of Dublin, whose verdict was that
all that was new in them was false, and what was true was old. This
shows how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at
considerable length in order to arouse public attention.

In September 1858 I set to work by the strong advice of
Lyell and Hooker to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species,
but was often interrupted by ill-health, and short visits to Dr. Lane's
delightful hydropathic establishment at Moor Park. I abstracted the MS.
begun on a much larger scale in 1856, and completed the volume on the
same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days' hard
labour. It was published under the title of the Origin of Species,
in November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected in the
later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.

It is no doubt the chief work of my life. It was from the
first highly successful. The first small edition of 1250 copies was
sold on the day of publication, and a second edition of 3000 copies
soon afterwards. Sixteen thousand copies have now (1876) been sold in
England and considering how stiff a book it is, this is a large sale.
It has been translated into almost every European tongue, even into
such languages as Spanish, Bohemian,

Polish, and Russian. It has also, according to Miss Bird,
been translated into Japanese, and is there much studied.1
Even an essay in Hebrew has appeared on it, showing that the theory is
contained in the Old Testament! The reviews were very numerous; for a
time I collected all that appeared on the Origin and on my
related
books, and these amount (excluding newspaper reviews) to 265; but after
a time I gave up the attempt in despair. Many separate essays and books
on the subject have appeared; and in Germany a catalogue or
bibliography on "Darwinismus" has appeared every year or two.

The success of the Origin may, I think, be
attributed in large part to my having long before written two condensed
sketches, and to my having finally abstracted a much larger manuscript,
which was itself an abstract. By this means I was enabled to select the
more striking facts and conclusions. I had, also, during many years,
followed a golden rule, namely, that whenever a published fact, a new
observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general
results, to make a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had
found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to
escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very
few objections were raised against my views which I had not at least
noticed and attempted to answer.

It has sometimes been said that the success of the Origin
proved "that the subject was in the air," or "that

men's minds were prepared for it." I do not think that
this is strictly true, for I occasionally sounded not a few
naturalists, and never happened to come across a single one who seemed
to doubt about the permanence of species. Even Lyell and Hooker, though
they would listen with interest to me, never seemed to agree. I tried
once or twice to explain to able men what I meant by natural selection,
but signally failed. What I believe was strictly true is that
innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the minds of
naturalists, ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory
which would receive them was sufficiently explained.1
Another element in the success of the book was its moderate size; and
this I owe to the appearance of Mr Wallace's essay; had I published on
the scale in which I began to write in 1856, the book would have been
four or five times as large as the Origin, and very few would
have had the patience to read it.

I gained much by my delay in publishing from about 1839,
when the theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and I lost nothing by
it, for I cared very little whether men attributed most originality to
me or Wallace; and his essay no doubt aided in the reception of the
theory. I was forestalled in only one important point, which my vanity
has always made me regret, namely, the explanation by means of the
Glacial period of the presence of the same species of plants and of
some few animals on distant mountain summits and in the arctic regions.

1 See Appendix, Part 1, on
Charles and Erasmus Darwin, p. 149. Charles's doubts as to whether "the
subject was in the air" are there discussed.—N. B.

This view pleased me so much that I wrote it out in
extenso, and it was read by Hooker some years before E. Forbes
published his celebrated memoir on the subject.1 In the very
few points in which we differed, I still think that I was in the right.
I have never, of course, alluded in print to my having independently
worked out this view.

Hardly any point gave me so much satisfaction when I was
at work on the Origin, as the explanation of the wide
difference in many classes between the embryo and the adult animal, and
of the close resemblance of the embryos within the same class. No
notice of this point was taken, as far as I remember, in the early
reviews of the Origin, and I recollect expressing my surprise
on this head in a letter to Asa Gray. Within late years several
reviewers have given the whole credit of the idea to Fritz Muller and
Häckel, who undoubtedly have worked it out much more fully, and in some
respects more correctly than I did. I had materials for a whole chapter
on the subject, and I ought to have made the discussion longer; for it
is clear that I failed to impress my readers; and he who succeeds in
doing so deserves, in my opinion, all the credit.

This leads me to remark that I have almost always been
treated honestly by my reviewers, passing over those without scientific
knowledge as not worthy of notice. My views have often been grossly
misrepresented, bitterly opposed and ridiculed, but this has been
generally done, as I believe, in good faith. I must,

however, except Mr Mivart,1 who as an American
expressed it in a letter has acted towards me "like a pettifogger", or
as Huxley has said "like an Old Bailey lawyer." On the whole I do not
doubt that my works have been over and over again greatly overpraised.
I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Lyell,
who many years ago, in reference to my geological works, strongly
advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did
any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.

Whenever2 I have found out that I have
blundered, or that my work has been imperfect, and when I have been
contemptuously criticised, and even when I have been overpraised, so
that I have felt mortified, it has been my greatest comfort to say
hundreds of times to myself that "I have worked as hard and as well as
I could, and no man can do more than this." I remember when in Good
Success Bay, in Tierra del Fuego, thinking, (and I believe that I wrote
home to the effect) that I could not employ my life better than in
adding a little to natural science. This I have done to the best of my
abilities, and critics may say what they like, but they cannot destroy
this conviction.

During the two last months of the year 1859 I was fully
occupied in preparing a second edition of the Origin, and by
an enormous correspondence. On January 7th, 1860, I began arranging my
notes for my work on

1 St. George Jackson Mivart,
1827-1900, biologist. Became a Roman Catholic, but later repudiated
ecclesiastical authority. An evolutionist, but an opponent of Charles
Darwin. F.R.S. 1869.—N.B.

the Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication; but it was not published until the beginning of
1868; the delay having been caused partly by frequent illnesses, one of
which lasted seven months, and partly by having been tempted to publish
on other subjects which at the time interested me more.

On May 15th, 1862, my little book on the Fertilisation
of Orchids, which cost me ten months' work, was published: most of
the facts had been slowly accumulated during several previous years.
During the summer of 1839, and, I believe, during the previous summer,
I was led to attend to the cross-fertilisation of flowers by the aid of
insects, from having come to the conclusion in my speculations on the
origin of species, that crossing played an important part in keeping
specific forms constant. I attended to the subject more or less during
every subsequent summer; and my interest in it was greatly enhanced by
having procured and read in November 1841, through the advice of Robert
Brown, a copy of C. K. Sprengel's1 wonderful book, Das
entdeckte Geheimnis der Natur. For some years before 1862 I had
specially attended to the fertilisation of our British orchids; and it
seemed to me the best plan to prepare as complete a treatise on this
group of plants as well as I could, rather than to utilise the great
mass of matter which I had slowly collected with respect to other
plants.

My resolve proved a wise one; for since the appearance of
my book, a surprising number of papers and

separate works on the fertilisation of all kinds of
flowers have appeared; and these are far better done than I could
possibly have effected. The merits of poor old Sprengel, so long
overlooked, are now fully recognised many years after his death.

During this same year I published in the Journal
of
the Linnean Society, a paper On the Two
Forms, or Dimorphic Condition
of Primula, and during the next five years, five other papers on
dimorphic and trimorphic plants. I do not think anything in my
scientific life has given me so much satisfaction as making out the
meaning of the structure of these plants. I had noticed in 1838 or 1839
the dimorphism of Linum flavum, and had at first thought that
it was merely a case of unmeaning variability. But on examining the
common species of Primula, I found that the two forms were much too
regular and constant to be thus viewed. I therefore became almost
convinced that the common cowslip and primrose were on the high-road to
become diœcious;—that the short pistil in the one form, and the short
stamens in the other form were tending towards abortion. The plants
were therefore subjected under this point of view to trial; but as soon
as the flowers with short pistils fertilised with pollen from the short
stamens, were found to yield more seeds than any other of the four
possible unions, the abortion-theory was knocked on the head. After
some additional experiment, it became evident that the two forms,
though both were perfect hermaphrodites, bore almost the same relation
to one another as do the two sexes of an ordinary animal. With Lythrum
we

have the still more wonderful case of three forms standing
in a similar relation to one another. I afterwards found that the
offspring from the union of two plants belonging to the same forms
presented a close and curious analogy with hybrids from the union of
two distinct species.

In the autumn of 1864 I finished a long paper on Climbing
Plants, and sent it to the Linnean Society. The writing of this
paper cost me four months: but I was so unwell when I received the
proof-sheets that I was forced to leave them very badly and often
obscurely expressed. The paper was little noticed, but when in 1875 it
was corrected and published as a separate book it sold well. I was led
to take up this subject by reading a short paper by Asa Gray, published
in 1858, on the movements of the tendrils of a Cucurbitacean plant. He
sent me seeds, and on raising some plants I was so much fascinated and
perplexed by the revolving movements of the tendrils and stems, which
movements are really very simple, though appearing at first very
complex, that I procured various other kinds of Climbing Plants, and
studied the whole subject. I was all the more attracted to it, from not
being at all satisfied with the explanation which Henslow gave us in
his Lectures, about Twining plants, namely, that they had a natural
tendency to grow up in a spire. This explanation proved quite
erroneous. Some of the adaptations displayed by climbing plants are as
beautiful as those by Orchids for ensuring cross-fertilisation.

was begun, as already stated, in the beginning of 1860,
but was not published until the beginning of 1868. It is a big book,
and cost me four years and two months' hard labour. It gives all my
observations and an immense number of facts collected from various
sources, about our domestic productions. In the second volume the
causes and laws of variation, inheritance, &c., are discussed, as
far as our present state of knowledge permits. Towards the end of the
work I give my well abused hypothesis of Pangenesis. An unverified
hypothesis is of little or no value. But if any one should hereafter be
led to make observations by which some such hypothesis could be
established, I shall have done good service, as an astonishing number
of isolated facts can thus be connected together and rendered
intelligible. In 1875 a second and largely corrected edition, which
cost me a good deal of labour, was brought out.

My Descent of Man was published in Feb. 1871. As
soon as I had become, in the year 1837 or 1838, convinced that species
were mutable productions, I could not avoid the belief that man must
come under the same law. Accordingly I collected notes on the subject
for my own satisfaction, and not for a long time with any intention of
publishing. Although in the Origin of Species, the derivation
of any particular species is never discussed, yet I thought it best, in
order that no honourable man should accuse me of concealing my views,
to add that by the work in question "light would be thrown on the
origin of man and his history." It would have been useless and
injurious to the success of the

book to have paraded without giving any evidence my
conviction with respect to his origin.

But when I found that many naturalists fully accepted the
doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to me advisable to work
up such notes as I possessed and to publish a special treatise on the
origin of man. I was the more glad to do so, as it gave me an
opportunity of fully discussing sexual selection,—a subject which had
always greatly interested me. This subject, and that of the variation
of our domestic productions, together with the causes and laws of
variation, inheritance, etc., and the intercrossing of Plants, are the
sole subjects which I have been able to write about in full, so as to
use all the materials which I had collected. The Descent of Man
took me three years to write, but then as usual some of this time was
lost by ill health, and some was consumed by preparing new editions and
other minor works. A second and largely corrected edition of the Descent
appeared in 1874.

My book on the Expression of the Emotions in Men and
Animals was published in the autumn of 1872. I had intended to
give only a chapter on the subject in the Descent of Man, but
as soon as I began to put my notes together, I saw that it would
require a separate Treatise.

My first child was born on December 27th, 1839, and I at
once commenced to make notes on the first dawn of the various
expressions which he exhibited, for I felt convinced, even at this
early period, that the most complex and fine shades of expression must
all have had

a gradual and natural origin. During the summer of the
following year, 1840, I read Sir C. Bell's1 admirable work
on Expression, and this greatly increased the interest which I felt in
the subject, though I could not at all agree with his belief that
various muscles had been specially created for the sake of expression.
From this time forward I occasionally attended to the subject, both
with respect to man and our domesticated animals. My book sold largely;
5267 copies having been disposed of on the day of publication.

In the summer of 1860 I was idling and resting near
Hartfield, where two species of Drosera abound; and I noticed that
numerous insects had been entrapped by the leaves. I carried home some
plants, and on giving them insects saw the movements of the tentacles,
and this made me think it probable that the insects were caught for
some special purpose. Fortunately a crucial test occurred to me, that
of placing a large number of leaves in various nitrogenous and
non-nitrogenous fluids of equal density; and as soon as I found that
the former alone excited energetic movements, it was obvious that here
was a fine new field for investigation.

During subsequent years, whenever I had leisure, I pursued
my experiments, and my book on Insectivorous Plantswas
published July 1875,—that
is sixteen years after my first observations. The
delay in this case, as with all my other books, has been a great
advantage to me; for a man after a long interval can criticise his own

work, almost as well as if it were that of another person.
The fact that a plant should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid
containing an acid and ferment, closely analogous to the digestive
fluid of an animal, was certainly a remarkable discovery.

During this autumn of 1876 I shall publish on the Effects
of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom. This
book will form a complement to that on the Fertilisation of
Orchids, in which I showed how perfect were the means for
cross-fertilisation, and here I shall show how important are the
results. I was led to make, during eleven years, the numerous
experiments recorded in this volume, by a mere accidental observation;
and indeed it required the accident to be repeated before my attention
was thoroughly aroused to the remarkable fact that seedlings of
self-fertilised parentage are inferior, even in the first generation,
in height and vigour to seedlings of cross-fertilised parentage. I hope
also to republish a revised edition of my book on Orchids, and
hereafter my papers on dimorphic and trimorphic plants, together with
some additional observations on allied points which I never have had
time to arrange. My strength will then probably be exhausted, and I
shall be ready to exclaim "Nunc dimittis."

The Effects of Cross- and Self-Fertilisation1
was published in the autumn of 1876; and the results there arrived at
explain, as I believe, the endless and wonderful

contrivances for the transportal of pollen from one plant
to another of the same species. I now believe, however, chiefly from
the observations of Hermann Müller, that I ought to have insisted more
strongly than I did on the many adaptations for self-fertilisation;
though I was well aware of many such adaptations. A much enlarged
edition of my Fertilisation of Orchids was published in 1877.

In this same year The Different Forms of Flowers, etc., appeared, and in 1880 a second edition. This book consists chiefly of
the several papers on heterostyled flowers, originally published by the
Linnean Society, corrected, with much new matter added, together with
observations on some other cases in which the same plant bears two
kinds of flowers. As before remarked, no little discovery of mine ever
gave me so much pleasure as the making out the meaning of heterostyled
flowers. The results of crossing such flowers in an illegitimate
manner, I believe to be very important as bearing on the sterility of
hybrids; although these results have been noticed by only a few persons.

In 1879, I had a translation of Dr. Ernst Krause's Life
of Erasmus Darwin published, and I added a sketch of his character
and habits from materials in my possession. Many persons have been much
interested by this little life, and I am surprised that only 800 or 900
copies were sold. Owing to my having accidentally omitted to mention
that Dr. Krause had enlarged and corrected his article in German before
it was translated, Mr Samuel Butler abused me with almost insane
virulence. How

I offended him so bitterly, I have never been able to
understand. The subject gave rise to some controversy in the Athenæum
newspaper and Nature. I laid all the documents before some good judges,
viz. Huxley, Leslie Stephen, Litchfield,1 etc., and they
were all unanimous that the attack was so baseless that it did not
deserve any public answer; for I had already expressed privately my
regret to Mr. Butler for my accidental omission. Huxley consoled me by
quoting some German lines from Goethe, who had been attacked by
someone, to the effect "that every Whale has its Louse."2

In 1880 I published, with Frank's assistance, our Power
of Movement in Plants. This was a tough piece of work. The book
bears somewhat the same relation to my little book on Climbing
Plants, which Cross-Fertilisation
did to the Fertilisation of
Orchids; for in accordance with the principles of evolution it
was
impossible to account for climbing plants having been developed in so
many widely different groups, unless all kinds of plants possess some
slight power of movement of an analogous kind. This I proved to be the
case, and I was further led to a rather wide generalisation, viz., that
the great and important classes of movements, excited by light, the
attraction of gravity, &c., are all modified forms of the
fundamental movement of circumnutation. It has always pleased me to
exalt plants in the scale of organised beings; and I therefore felt an
especial pleasure in

1 His son-in-law, R. B.
Litchfield.—N. B.

2 See Appendix. Part ii. p. 167.
On the Darwin-Butler controversy, with unpublished documents, including
Huxley's letter in its entirety.—N. B.

showing how many and what admirably well adapted movements
the tip of a root possesses.

I have now (May 1, 1881) sent to the printers the MS. of a
little book on The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action
of Worms. This is a subject of but small importance; and I know
not whether it will interest any readers,1 but it has
interested me. It is the completion of a short paper read before the
Geological Society more than forty years ago, and has revived old
geological thoughts.2

I have now mentioned all the books which I have published,
and these have been the milestones in my life, so that little remains
to be said. I am not conscious of any change in my mind during the last
thirty years, excepting in one point presently to be mentioned; nor
indeed could any change have been expected unless one of general
deterioration. But my father lived to his eighty-third year with his
mind as lively as ever it was, and all his faculties undimmed; and I
hope that I may die before my mind fails to a sensible extent. I think
that I have become a little more skilful in guessing right explanations
and in devising experimental tests; but this may probably be the result
of mere practice, and of a larger store of knowledge. I have as much
difficulty as ever in expressing myself clearly and concisely; and this
difficulty has caused me a very great loss of time; but it has had the
compensating advantage of

1 Between November 1881 and
February 1884, 8,500 copies were sold.—F.D.

2 End of 1881 Addendum.
Beginning
"The Effect of Cross…", p. 133. —N.B.

forcing me to think long and intently about every
sentence, and thus I have been often led to see errors in reasoning and
in my own observations or those of others.

There seems to be a sort of fatality in my mind leading me
to put at first my statement and proposition in a wrong or awkward
form. Formerly I used to think about my sentences before writing them
down; but for several years I have found that it saves time to scribble
in a vile hand whole pages as quickly as I possibly can, contracting
half the words; and then correct deliberately. Sentences thus scribbled
down are often better ones than I could have written deliberately.

Having said this much about my manner of writing, I will
add that with my larger books I spend a good deal of time over the
general arrangement of the matter. I first make the rudest outline in
two or three pages, and then a larger one in several pages, a few words
or one word standing for a whole discussion or series of facts. Each of
these headings is again enlarged and often transformed before I begin
to write in extenso. As in several of my books facts observed
by others have been very extensively used, and as I have always had
several quite distinct subjects in hand at the same time, I may mention
that I keep from thirty to forty large portfolios, in cabinets with
labelled shelves, into which I can at once put a detached reference or
memorandum. I have bought many books and at their ends I make an index
of all the facts that concern my work; or, if the book is

not my own, write out a separate abstract, and of such
abstracts I have a large drawer full. Before beginning on any subject I
look to all the short indexes and make a general and classified index,
and by taking the one or more proper portfolios I have all the
information collected during my life ready for use.

I have said that in one respect my mind has changed during
the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it,
poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron,
Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as
a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the
historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me
considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I
cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read
Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I
have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music.—Music generally
sets me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on,
instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery,
but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did.
On the other hand, novels which are works of the imagination, though
not of a very high order, have been for years a wonderful relief and
pleasure to me, and I often bless all novelists. A surprising number
have been read aloud to me, and I like all if moderately good, and if
they do not end unhappily—against which a law ought to be passed. A
novel, according to my taste, does not come into the first class unless
it contains

some person whom one can thoroughly love, and if it be a
pretty woman all the better.

This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic
tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies and travels
(independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and
essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did.
My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general
laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused
the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the higher tastes
depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organised or
better constituted than mine, would not I suppose have thus suffered;
and if I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read
some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for
perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept
active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness,
and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to
the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature.

My books have sold largely in England, have been
translated into many languages, and passed through several editions in
foreign countries. I have heard it said that the success of a work
abroad is the best test of its enduring value. I doubt whether this is
at all trustworthy; but judged by this standard my name ought to last
for a few years. Therefore it may be worth while for me to try to
analyse the mental qualities and the conditions on which my success has

I have no great quickness of apprehension or wit which is
so remarkable in some clever men, for instance Huxley. I am therefore a
poor critic: a paper or book, when first read, generally excites my
admiration, and it is only after considerable reflection that I
perceive the weak points. My power to follow a long and purely abstract
train of thought is very limited; I should, moreover, never have
succeeded with metaphysics or mathematics. My memory is extensive, yet
hazy: it suffices to make me cautious by vaguely telling me that I have
observed or read something opposed to the conclusion which I am
drawing, or on the other hand in favour of it; and after a time I can
generally recollect where to search for my authority. So poor in one
sense is my memory, that I have never been able to remember for more
than a few days a single date or a line of poetry.

Some of my critics have said, "Oh, he is a good observer,
but has no power of reasoning." I do not think that this can be true,
for the Origin of Species is one long argument from the
beginning to the end, and it has convinced not a few able men. No one
could have written it without having some power of reasoning. I have a
fair share of invention and of common sense or judgment, such as every
fairly successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not I believe, in any
higher degree.

am superior to the common run of men in noticing things
which easily escape attention, and in observing them carefully. My
industry has been nearly as great as it could have been in the
observation and collection of facts. What is far more important, my
love of natural science has been steady and ardent. This pure love has,
however, been much aided by the ambition to be esteemed by my fellow
naturalists. From my early youth I have had the strongest desire to
understand or explain whatever I observed,—that is, to group all facts
under some general laws. These causes combined have given me the
patience to reflect or ponder for any number of years over any
unexplained problem. As far as I can judge, I am not apt to follow
blindly the lead of other men. I have steadily endeavoured to keep my
mind free, so as to give up any hypothesis, however much beloved (and I
cannot resist forming one on every subject), as soon as facts are shown
to be opposed to it. Indeed I have had no choice but to act in this
manner, for with the exception of the Coral Reefs, I cannot remember a
single first-formed hypothesis which had not after a time to be given
up or greatly modified. This has naturally led me to distrust greatly
deductive reasoning in the mixed sciences. On the other hand, I am not
very sceptical,—a frame of mind which I believe to be injurious to the
progress of science;1 a good deal of scepticism in a
scientific man is advisable to avoid much loss of time; for I have met
with not a few men,

who I feel sure have often thus been deterred from
experiment or observations, which would have proved directly or
indirectly serviceable.

In illustration, I will give the oddest case which I have
known. A gentleman (who, as I afterwards heard, was a good local
botanist) wrote to me from the Eastern counties that the seeds or beans
of the common field-bean had this year everywhere grown on the wrong
side of the pod. I wrote back, asking for further information, as I did
not understand what was meant; but I did not receive any answer for a
long time. I then saw in two newspapers, one published in Kent and the
other in Yorkshire, paragraphs stating that it was a most remarkable
fact that "the beans this year had all grown on the wrong side." So I
thought that there must be some foundation for so general a statement.
Accordingly, I went to my gardener, an old Kentish man, and asked him
whether he had heard anything about it; and he answered, "Oh, no, Sir,
it must be a mistake, for the beans grow on the wrong side only on
Leap-year, and this is not Leap-year." I then asked him how they grew
on common years and how on leap-years, but soon found out that he knew
absolutely nothing of how they grew at any time; but he stuck to his
belief.

After a time I heard from my first informant, who, with
many apologies, said that he should not have written to me had he not
heard the statement from several intelligent farmers; but that he had
since spoken again to every one of them, and not one knew in the least
what he had himself meant. So that here a belief

—if indeed a statement with no definite idea attached to
it can be called a belief —had spread over almost the whole of England
without any vestige of evidence. I have known in the course of my life
only three intentionally falsified statements, and one of these may
have been a hoax (and there have been several scientific hoaxes) which,
however, took in an American agricultural journal. It related to the
formation in Holland of a new breed of oxen by the crossing of
distinct species of Bos (some of which I happen to know are sterile
together), and the author had the impudence to state that he had
corresponded with me, and that I had been deeply impressed with the
importance of his results. The article was sent to me by the editor of
an English Agricult. Journal, asking for my opinion before republishing
it.

A second case was an account of several varieties raised
by the author from several species of Primula, which had spontaneously
yielded a full complement of seed, although the parent plants had been
carefully protected from the access of insects. This account was
published before I had discovered the meaning of heterostylism, and the
whole statement must have been fraudulent, or there was neglect in
excluding insects so gross as to be scarcely credible.

The third case was more curious: Mr Huth published in his
book on Consanguineous Marriage some long extracts from a Belgian
author, who stated that he had interbred rabbits in the closest manner
for very many generations without the least injurious effects. The

account was published in a most respectable Journal, that
of the Royal Medical Soc. of Belgium; but I could not avoid feeling
doubts,—I hardly know why, except that there were no accidents of any
kind, and my experience in breeding animals made me think this
improbable.

So with much hesitation I wrote to Prof. Van Beneden
asking him whether the author was a trustworthy man. I soon heard in
answer that the Society had been greatly shocked by discovering that
the whole account was a fraud. The writer had been publicly challenged
in the Journal to say where he had resided and kept his large stock of
rabbits while carrying on his experiments, which must have consumed
several years, and no answer could be extracted from him. I informed
poor Mr Huth, that the account which formed the cornerstone of his
argument was fraudulent; and he in the most honourable manner
immediately had a slip printed to this effect to be inserted in all
future copies of his book which might be sold.1

My habits are methodical, and this has been of not a
little use for my particular line of work. Lastly, I have had ample
leisure from not having to earn my own bread. Even ill-health, though
it has annihilated several years of my life, has saved me from the
distractions of society and amusement.

Therefore, my success as a man of science, whatever this
may
have amounted to, has been determined, as far as I can judge, by
complex and diversified mental quali-

ties and conditions. Of these the most important have
been—the love of science—unbounded patience in long reflecting over any
subject—industry in observing and collecting facts—and a fair share of
invention as well as of common-sense. With such moderate abilities as I
possess, it is truly surprising that thus I should have influenced to a
considerable extent the beliefs of scientific men on some important
points.

August 3rd 1876

This
sketch of my life was begun about May 28th. at Hopedene, and since then
I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons

THE INHERENT similarities between Charles and Erasmus
Darwin, born seventy-eight years apart, with a period of convulsive
social and intellectual history between them, makes some comparison of
the fate of their respective achievements in the world of thought of
particular interest. For Erasmus Darwin, like his grandson, formulated
an evolutionary system of world order, yet left no lasting mark on
commonly held beliefs. Charles succeeded where Erasmus had failed; and
in this Appendix I have attempted to show some of the reasons why.

Dr. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) lived under a dwindling
Church authority, with science and philosophy announcing the
approaching perfectibility of Man. It was a period of belief in
material progress, when the steam engine, the mechanisation of
industry, canals and sewage works, seemed symbols of Man's power over
external nature. The newly discovered laws of physics and the emerging
laws in the world of chemistry, gave a further sense of confidence.
Natural Theology was

being preached by Paley and others, who not only took into
account the increasing knowledge of adaptation in biology, but made a
pivot of this very knowledge. Dr. Darwin looked at the facts of
adaptation in the human body without the bias so general in 18th
century science,—a bias which saw a purpose in all the Creator's works
for the immediate benefit of mankind; he produced his original theory
of Generation or Descent with modification in his Zoönomia in
1794-6, partially anticipating Lamarck's better-known theory, and
preceding him by fifteen years.

Today it is difficult to realise the immense vogue Erasmus
Darwin's works once possessed, but when Charles was young the imposing
memory of his grandfather must still have loomed large. Today Zoönomia
is tough reading, whilst the heroic couplets of The Botanic Garden
and of Phytologia, with their repeated evocations of Deities
and Nymphs, are easy subjects for parody; the voluminous prose notes
which contain the overflow of his copious ideas make better reading.
Years before Charles was born, Coleridge coined the word "darwinising"
to describe the wild theorising of Erasmus,—though some of these ideas
had affected Coleridge deeply in his youth, when still in sympathy with
scientific adventure. It was only in his later years of disillusionment
and antagonism to contemporary materialism that he came to oppose all
that Erasmus Darwin stood for and cried:—"O Mercy, the blindness of the
man!" Erasmus's poetry nauseated him, and he likened his verse to "the
mists that occasionally arise at

the foot of Parnassus"; and he stigmatised Dr. Darwin's
philosophy in Zoönomia as the "State of Nature or the Orang
Outang theology of the human race, substituted for the first chapters
of the Book of Genesis";—a strange foreshadowing of the outraged
protests that followed on the publication of the Origin of Species
two generations later.

Many of the other subjects besides the theory of Descent
dealt with in Zoönomia, became favourite themes for Charles's
intensive study later on. Of course the topics discussed by them both
have an older history, and Linnaeus, Buffon and others helped to fix
attention on certain matters, such as the changes occurring in
domesticated animals. In Zoönomia Erasmus considers the
twining and other movements in plants; the cross-fertilisation in
plants; the origin of the sense of beauty in connection with the female
form; adaptive and protective coloration, heredity, and the
domestication of animals. Charles Darwin deals with these subjects in
the following books;—Climbing Plants; Power of Movement of Plants;
Cross- and Self-Fertilisation in Plants; Fertilisation of Orchids;
Descent of Man; Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication;
and the Origin of Species.

Erasmus Darwin wrote of sexual selection:—"The final cause
of this contest among males seems to be, that the strongest and most
active animal should propagate the species which should thus become
improved." This might be mistaken for a sentence written by Charles
himself sixty-five years later; for here Erasmus has groped towards the
idea of selection.

Yet it will have been noted in The Autobiography
(p. 49) that Charles insists that neither Lamarck's writings nor his
grandfather's had had any effect on him. The apparent contradiction
implicit in his admission following this assertion, that hearing such
views maintained early in life may have favoured his upholding them 'in
a different form' may, I believe, be understood by emphasising the
words 'in a different form.' For Erasmus Darwin's method was
largely built of a heavy superstructure of speculation on an
insufficient foundation of fact, a method alien to Charles Darwin's
whole outlook. Charles was asking new questions of life's processes and
saw a general pattern emerging through the agency of Natural Selection;
Nature and her myriad forms became a possible self-regulating
system,—though the central mystery of the living reproducing unit
remained. The conviction of the power of Natural Selection, working on
the universality of variation in animals and plants, led Charles to
reject early evolutionary influences as the mere facile speculations of
apriori
philosophers, who saw a Creation for Man's use in
all Nature's Works. What Charles was advocating in his own work was
theory built on a firmer structure of evidence. He vindicated a new
balance in Natural Science between theory and a more scrupulous
observation of fact, and a more rigorous recourse to experiment. The
strength of his argument in the Origin of Species,—and indeed
in all his work—lay in his power of generalisation under the strictest
control of related observations; a generalisa-

In a letter to Charles Lyell written in 1859, he wrote of
Lamarck's work that he got "not a fact or idea from it". Such a
disclaimer can only mean that to Charles Darwin the absence of evidence
for Lamarck's theory invalidated the whole, in the same way that his
grandfather's theory was invalidated. But although Charles remained
suspicious of his grandfather's "overpowering tendency to theorise and
generalise", he nevertheless added this tribute to Erasmus in his Life
of Erasmus Darwin; "His remarks…on the value of experiments and
the use of hypotheses show that he had the true spirit of the
philosopher".

Charles denied too that the subject of evolution was in
the air, (Autobiography, p. 124) but again it was the facts,
"the innumerable well-observed facts" which were lacking. No doubt the
isolation of life at Down must have helped to prevent the penetration
of opinion from workers in other fields than his own, so that he
unconsciously overlooked indications that belief in the permanence of
species was waning. In this context it is worth quoting the young
Bostonian intellectual Henry Brooks Adams, who knew England well in the
1860's—especially diplomatic England—when he was acting as private
secretary to his father, the American Minister. Young Adams was born in
1838, under the shadow of Bostonian Unitarianism, and in the chapter

of his autobiography entitled Darwinism,1Adams reveals contemporary opinion, and says "he felt, like
nine men in ten an instinctive belief in Evolution." He writes:—"At
that moment ('67) Darwin was convulsing society.

The geological champion of Darwin was Sir Charles Lyell,
and the Lyells were intimate at the Legation. Sir Charles constantly
said of Darwin, what Palgrave said of Tennyson, that the first time he
came to town, Adams should be asked to meet him, but neither of them
ever came to town, or ever cared to meet a young American, and one
could not go to them because they were known to dislike intrusion. The
only Americans who were not allowed to intrude were the half-dozen in
the Legation. Adams was content to read Darwin, specially his Origin
of Species and his Voyage of the Beagle. He was a
Darwinist before the letter; a predestined follower of the tide; but he
was hardly trained to follow Darwin's evidences.…He never tried to
understand Darwin; but he still fancied he might get the best part of
Darwinism from the easier study of geology; a science which suited idle
minds as well as though it were history. Every curate in England
dabbled in geology and hunted only for vestiges of Creation. Darwin
hunted for vestiges of Natural Selection, and Adams followed him,
although he cared nothing about Selection, unless for the indirect
amusement of upsetting curates. He felt, like nine men in ten, an
instinctive belief in Evolution, but he

1 The Education of Henry Adams.
An Autobiography. Constable & Co. 1918. Henry Adams always speaks
of himself in the third person.

This was written after Darwin had "convulsed society";
but there are earlier significant examples, showing how well-founded
ideas had long been in the air, though Charles Darwin may not have
known of them.

In the sphere of social history before Malthus gained
publicity for his views, there were others who saw how the struggle for
existence was actually affecting populations. Halévy, in his History
of the English People, refers to an obscure pamphlet on the Poor
Laws, by a "Well-wisher to Mankind", written in 1786. The writer, the
Rev. Mr. Townsend, blames the Poor Laws for preserving the weak at the
expense of the strong, with all the implications of the working of
Natural Selection. He takes the analogy of the populations of goats and
greyhounds on the island of Juan Fernandez, mentioned by Dampier. The
goats at first were in sole possession and reached a subsistence level
in the face of some disease and the raids of English Privateers. Then
the Spaniards put a pair of greyhounds on the island to extirpate the
goats and annoy the English. These greyhounds "increased in proportion
to the quantity of food they met with." The goats diminished and
retired to the rocks, and a new balance was set up; "the weakest of
both species were amongst the first to pay the debt of nature, the most
active and vigorous preserved their lives. It is the quantity of food
which regulates the number of the human species…the

But Darwin did admit in the passage from the Autobiography
(p. 124), that "innumerable well-observed facts were stored in the
minds of naturalists ready to take their proper place as soon as any
theory which would receive them was sufficiently explained." These
words exactly fit the case of a younger contemporary of Darwin's, to
whom the joint paper by Wallace and Darwin in the Linnean Journal
in 1858 came as a revelation of light, so that the stored well-observed
facts fell into place.

Alfred Newton, Professor of comparative anatomy at
Cambridge from 1866-1907, was one of the first naturalists to accept
the evolutionary theory on its new basis of Natural Selection, as a
welcome solution to the many problems of bird distribution, variation
and adaptation, which had long been puzzling him.1

In 1858 he had been with John Wolley in Iceland, and
enforced idleness had led to frequent discussions on the old topics of
species, their origins and limits. Years later, in February 1888, he
published an article in Macmillan's Magazine entitled The Early
Days of Darwinism, in which he describes the immediate and
overwhelming effect on his mind produced by reading the joint paper by
Wallace and Darwin. He writes:—"Not many days after my return home
(from Iceland) there reached me the part of the Journal of the Linnean
Society which bears on its cover the date 20th August, 1858, and con-

1 See Life of Alfred Newton,
by A. F. R. Wollaston, John Murray, 1921.

tains the papers of Mr. Darwin and Mr. Wallace…. I sat up
late that night to read it; and never shall I forget the impression it
made upon me. Herein was contained a perfectly simple solution of all
the difficulties which had been troubling me for months past. I hardly
knew whether I at first felt more vexed at the solution not having
occurred to me than pleased that it had been found at all. However,
after reading these papers more than once, I went to bed satisfied that
a solution had been found. All personal feeling apart, it came to me
like the direct revelation of a higher power; and I awoke next morning
with the consciousness that there was an end of all the mystery in the
simple phrase "Natural Selection". I am free to confess that in my joy
I did not then perceive, and I cannot say when I did begin to perceive,
that though my especial puzzles were thus explained, dozens, scores,
nay hundreds of other difficulties lay in the path."

To Charles Darwin it was the body of evidence supporting
evolutionary theory that mattered, and that he knew was his own
contribution. Neither his grandfather, nor any of his contemporaries,
saving only A. R. Wallace, had looked both closely enough at the
smallest detail, and broadly enough at the vast procession of organic
form, to bring this authoritative evidence to bear, without which he
could admit no influence to his mind.

The love of close observation of natural fact and his need
for a theory to explain everything he saw, forms the

closely woven tissue which constituted his genius. It is
worth considering a certain change of emphasis in the warp and the weft
of his scientific thinking that takes place as the years pass. As a
young man his suspicion of the speculative philosopher was unqualified;
in later years he acknowledged a growing respect for speculation, if
well followed up by observation and experiment. Sometimes he uses the
words generalisation and speculation
loosely, but generalisation
towards the end of his life reaches respectability if backed by a
sufficient body of factual evidence. This change followed the course of
his intellectual development; his theorising instinct, never absent,
was at first held on a tight rein, which was only slackened as his
power of drawing inferences increased with the increase of his
knowledge. Fact-seeking and theory often seem almost welded as one
process in his mind; yet sometimes he discriminates clearly. Though the
theory is worthless without the well-observed facts, the facts are
useless without the frame of the theory to receive them. He agreed with
Buffon's well-known advice to study the How of things, and not the Why;
but he did not agree with another recommendation—"Ramassons des faits
pour nous donner des idées." For Darwin came to believe that the value
of fact-finding lies solely in relation to theory. This may seem a
contradiction to his mistrust of speculation as a danger to scientific
thought which I have insisted on; I believe that his development from
the youthful pleasure in direct observation and collecting to

the maturer satisfaction of the theorist, can largely
account for the inconsistency.

I am giving quotations from his letters at different
periods of his life to establish this alteration of stress. A certain
vacillation is also shown; it could not well be otherwise, since all
scientific work requires both theory and fact-finding. Moreover his
different correspondents needed varying advice. Nevertheless I think
there is a general trend in his thought from the early fear of wild
speculation towards a mature appreciation of theory on a factual basis.
This relates the quotations to the argument of this Appendix; Darwin's
denial both of his grandfather's influence and of the importance of
earlier evolutionists was really a repudiation of their premises and
method of attack.

QUOTATIONS

Emma Darwin used to repeat this saying of her
husband's:—"It is a fatal fault to reason whilst observing, though so
necessary
beforehand and so useful afterwards." This piece of advice is worth
recording as in some measure summing up Charles's views given in the
following quotations.

In 1837, soon after his return from the Beagle
voyage, he wrote amongst stray jotted notes, given in full in Note 4,
p. 231:—"I have so much more pleasure in direct observation that I
could not go on as Lyell does, correcting and adding up new information
to old train

and I do not see what line can be followed by man tied
down to London—in country experiment and observation on lower animals".
In another place on the same page he writes:—"Systematize and study
affinities." Thus in 1837 he recognized the stimulus that was to
persist to the end of his life from his delight in direct observation.
But the two words "study affinities" show that a background of theory
was there, and that his mind was already in travail with evolutionary
problems.

In 1844 he wrote to J. D. Hooker, (More Letters,
Vol. I, p. 39.) "I must be allowed to put my own interpretation on what
you say of 'not being a good arranger of extended views'—which is that
you do not indulge in the loose speculations so easily started by every
smatterer and wandering collector. I look at a strong tendency to
generalise as an entire evil."

In 1850 he wrote to C. H. L. Woodd on heat effects in
geological stratification. (More Letters, Vol. II, p. 133.)
"All young geologists have a great turn for speculation; I have burnt
my fingers pretty sharply in that way, and am now perhaps becoming
over-cautious; and feel inclined to cavil at speculation when the
direct and immediate effect of a cause in question cannot be shewn….I
can have no doubt that speculative men, with a curb on, make far the
best observers…With every good wish that you may go on with your
geological studies, speculations, and especially observations."

p. 252.), who he thought was not indulging enough in
generalisation. He began to emphasise the hardness of observation, by
which I think is implied the difficulty for the theoriser to keep the
integrity of impartiality; the facts are of value in relation to the
theory, and therefore prejudice is easy.

"Now I would say it is your duty to generalise as far as
you safely can from your as yet completed work….As careful observation
is far harder work than generalisation, and still harder than
speculation, do you not think it very possible that it may be
overvalued? It ought never to be forgotten that the observer can
generalise his own observations incomparably better than anyone else.
How many astronomers have laboured their whole lives on observations,
and have not drawn a single conclusion; I think it is Herschel who has
remarked how much better it would be if they had paused in their
devoted work and seen what they could have deduced from their work."

In 1861 in his letter to Henry Fawcett (More Letters,
Vol. I, p. 195) he acknowledges that observation is itself a selective
act. "How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observation
must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!" Here
he admits that there must be a "view" preceding observation, that is, a
theory or hypothesis which lends value to the fact-finding.1

In 1863 he wrote to J. Scott (More Letters, Vol.
II, p. 323): "I would suggest to you the advantage, at

present, of being very sparing in introducing theory in
your papers (I formerly erred much in Geology in that way): let
theory guide your observations, but till your reputation is well
established, be sparing in publishing theory. It makes persons doubt
your observations."

In 1870 he wrote to J. D. Hooker (More Letters,
Vol. I, p. 321.) "Your conclusion that all speculation about
preordination is idle waste of time is the only wise one; but how
difficult it is not to speculate! My theology is a simple muddle; I
cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I can
see no evidence of beneficent design, or indeed of design of any kind,
in the details."

He summarised his view of deductive writing in his comment
on Herbert Spencer. "His deductive manner of treating every subject is
wholly opposed to my frame of mind…over and over again have I said to
myself after reading one of his discussions—'Here would be a fine
subject for half a dozen years' work'."

His son Francis wrote in Life and Letters (Vol.
I, p. 149), on his father's attitude to theory and observation towards
the end of his life. After dwelling on his father's repeatedly saying
that it was important to know when to give up an enquiry, Francis
Darwin continues:—"He often said that no one could be a good observer
unless he was an active theoriser. This brings me back to what I said
about his instinct for arresting exceptions: it was as though he were
charged with theorising power ready to flow into any channel on the
slightest disturbance, so that no fact, however small, could avoid
releasing

a stream of theory, and thus the fact became magnified
into importance. In this way it naturally happened that many untenable
theories occurred to him; but fortunately his richness of imagination
was equalled by his power of judging and condemning the thoughts that
occurred to him."

Here Francis describes the essential richness of ideas and
speculative power in his father, without which the fact-finding censor
of the mind has nothing to work on; only then can the censor afford to
discard untenable hypotheses or ideas for a new speculative pattern.
The "right" one is the one to fit the greatest number of facts.

The last quotation in the chronological list of letters
shows how Charles was still speculating on this intricate interlocking
of the two processes towards the end of his life. I give the whole
characteristic letter in which the passage occurs written to his
youngest son Horace on the occasion of his passing the Little Go at
Cambridge at the age of 20 in 1871. Horace had not been brilliant at
school or university, and examinations were dreaded.

6 Q. Anne St.
W.

Friday morning 8.30 a.m.

[Dec. 15 1871]

My Dear Horace,

We are so rejoiced, for we have just had a card from that
good George
in Cambridge, saying that you are all right and safe through the
accursed Little Go.—I am so glad, and now you can follow the bent of
your talents and work as hard at Mathematicks and science, as your
health will permit.

I have been speculating last night what makes a man a
discoverer of undiscovered things, and a most perplexing problem it
is.—Many men who are very clever,—much cleverer than discoverers—never
originate anything. As far as I can conjecture, the art consists in
habitually searching for causes or meaning of everything which occurs.
This implies sharp observation and requires as much knowledge as
possible of the subject investigated.

But why I write all this now, I hardly know,—except out of
the fullness of my heart; for I do rejoice heartily that you have
passed this Charybdis.—

Your affectionate Father

C. Darwin

I have stressed the importance of Charles's changing views
on speculation in his intellectual development, for it seems to me
clear that he made use of his opposition to his father's and
grandfather's mode of thought to vindicate his own independence.
Robert's severe criticism of Charles as a young man could thus be
claimed as an integral step in the story of his son's development;
without the urgent need to claim independence, would Charles have
wished to overcome Robert's opposition to the proposed Beagle
voyage? Without that five-years' discipline, would Charles's genius
have come to fruition? Conjectures can be endless; but to me no
reference to Robert's tyranny, nor to the early death of Charles's
mother, can solve the particular problems of this Appendix.1
The impact of contemporary ideas and opinions handed on

1 See Note 5 on Charles's
ill-health, p. 239. The extent of Robert's tyranny may be questioned.

from the mature to the younger generation, will always be
accompanied by unpredictable emotional reactions, often unrecognised,
and perhaps all the more intense where there is no violent schism in a
family tradition for an open break-away.

Charles's devotion to his father Robert might have kept
him in bondage longer than was the case. Though there was no
publication on evolution until after his father's death, Charles was
nevertheless working his way to freedom years earlier. A vindication of
intellectual independence from his grandfather's scientific method and
his father's dominating personality lay along the same path,—namely the
scientific path of a search for factual evidence. Dr. Robert, though
without the scientific mind, was given to speculation on every subject,
like his own father Erasmus; so that in repudiating the way of thought
of one ancestor, Charles was really rejecting both. It has been
suggested that he dropped the profession of medicine as part of this
rejection of the ancestral attitudes. Medicine may well have seemed to
Charles too closely associated with a 'speculative' turn of mind.

In conclusion I should like to stress again the similarity
and dissimilarity between Charles and Erasmus Darwin; their interests
and family traditions ran parallel, yet there was a wide divergence in
their basic characters and in their reactions to the contemporary
scene. Charles Darwin had been brought up on the traditions and
opinions of the early 19th century when the rationalism and utilitarian
outlook of the 18th century still reigned.

Dr. Erasmus Darwin had been a mouthpiece for that earlier
period of enthusiasm when unknown animals and plants were reaching
Europe through increased trade and travel, and Linnaeus was leading
biologic nomenclature out of chaos. Throughout Europe a closer scrutiny
of living forms was put in motion; old scientific sign-posts were done
away with, and Erasmus was one of the pioneers who installed a new one
pointing to Evolution. Two generations later it was his grandson
Charles's turn to express new ideas, built on new knowledge. It became
his turn to correct old sign-posts, and his grandfather's was one of
those he repainted. On the newer sign-post was again the word
Evolution, but he added Natural Selection as a pointer how to get
there. More significant than a direction to any final goal, was the
clear guidance on how to read the map.

TODAY THE once notorious quarrel between Samuel Butler and
Charles Darwin is almost forgotten, and the short account in the
complete version of the Autobiography,—printed here for the first
time,—will only raise vague memories in the minds of most readers.

The story is a complex one, both in substance and
chronology, but after I had examined the wealth of material among the
Darwin MSS. in the Cambridge University Library the whole incident
appeared to me in such a new light that I felt it must be retold in all
its detail. In the old letters from this full dossier voices from the
past speak out, upholding Darwin's case against Butler and advising
silence; whatever may be thought now of this advice, the voices of
Charles's devoted friends and relations all declared Samuel Butler's
attacks to be unjustified and base.

Samuel Butler was twenty-six years younger than Charles
Darwin, and as a young sheep-farmer in New Zealand he watched the
battle waged against orthodoxy soon after the publication of the Origin
of Species with the enthusiasm of a proselyte. The letters to
Darwin of this period, humble, sincere and filled with admiration,

are also in the Cambridge dossier, and form a revealing
contrast to his later bitter indictments. The mutual attraction and
friendly correspondence soon began to cool; as Darwin's star rose for
the scientific world, so did it sink in Butler's estimation. For Butler
never really understood the full importance of Darwin's revolution in
scientific thinking. Believing that Mind is the controller of
evolutionary direction, he began to study the early evolutionists,
Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, and the more he studied them,
the more he liked them and disliked the younger upstart Darwin. Butler,
in attempting to reinstate the older evolutionists, aligned himself
with the 18th century, so that the quarrel becomes intimately bound up
with Charles's judgment of his grandfather's views which I have already
discussed; the controversy between them is in fact another aspect of
the change taking place in biological thinking towards the middle of
the 19th century.

The chronology of certain publications in 1879 is of
importance in understanding the climax of Butler's increasing
antagonism.

On Charles Darwin's seventieth birthday in February 1879,
there was issued in Germany a congratulatory number of the German
periodical Kosmos (II, Jahrg. Heft 11), containing an article
by Dr. E. Krause on Dr. Erasmus Darwin's contribution towards the
history of the Descent-theory. In May, 1879, Butler published Evolution
Old and New, or the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck
compared with that of Mr. C. Darwin, without being aware of
Krause's article in

Kosmos. Meanwhile Krause was enlarging his essay
for translation; it formed the second part of Charles Darwin's Life
of Erasmus Darwin, published in November of the same year. Whilst
Krause had been engaged in this collaboration, Charles had sent him a
copy of Butler's work, and some of Krause's additions consisted of
disparaging references to Butler's ideas. The main offending passage
ran:—"Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significent first
step in the path which his grandson has opened up for us, but to wish
to revise it at the present day as has actually been attempted, shows a
weakness of thought and a mental anachronism which no one can envy."

Unfortunately Charles Darwin's Preface to his Life of
Erasmus Darwin omitted to state that Krause's original essay had
been altered—exactly how this happened is explained later.1
Butler soon compared the supposed correct translation with a copy of
the original, and the differences led him to conclude that the
unacknowledged alterations formed a covert attack against himself; the
public would think his views had been condemned, even before the
publication of Evolution Old and New, and by an independent
German scholar.

Charles apologised to Butler on realising his error of
ommision, but Butler's conviction that he was the victim of a plot
stood firm. His intense emotional virulence—together with the advice of
Darwin's relations and friends—finally suffocated Darwin

into silence, in spite of his original determination to
give a succinct account of how his mistake had arisen.

What was really at stake in this storm in a tea-cup? The
Victorian security, which seems so solid as we look back, is here seen
rocking. Darwin and Butler both craved for approbation; Darwin, in his
anxiety and distress at Butler's attacks, needed the approval of family
and intimate friends to allow him to withdraw from the pain of
controversy into his evolutionary stronghold,—won with no failure of
courage in the face of opposition some twenty years earlier. He was
sure of himself where scientific questions were at stake, but needed
protection against human antagonisms. Butler had faced opposition all
his life, and courted it as the aggressive do; but he too needed
approval and his faithful friend, Miss Savage, was always ready to
sanction his revenge by playing on the theme of the villainy of the
Darwin clique and their monstrous humbug. The intensity of Butler's
feeling is expressed in his first letter to the Athenæum
which will be given in full later, in which he says: "It is doubtless a
common practice for writers to take an opportunity of revising their
works, but it is not common when a covert condemnation of an opponent
has been interpolated into a revised edition, the revision of which has
been concealed, to declare with every circumstance of distinctness that
the condemnation was written prior to the book which might appear to
have called it forth, and thus lead readers to suppose that it must be
an unbiased opinion."

Readers of the 1887 version of the Autobiography will find
no reference to the quarrel in any words of Charles's. It is
significant that Francis Darwin omitted all mention by his father of
the quarrel when he was editing the Autobiography in Life
and
Letters in 1887, for it was Francis who had
urged that a public
explanation should be made at the time of Butler's bitterest attacks.
Perhaps the family censorship that had exercised discretion over the
religious passages was again at work; perhaps family feelings were
still too raw in 1887 for the question to be opened up afresh. Francis
makes a reference to the incident in Vol. III of Life and Letters,
p. 220, where he says: "The publication of the 'Life of Erasmus
Darwin' led to an attack by Mr. Samuel Butler, which amounted to a
charge of falsehood against my father. After consulting his friends, he
came to the determination to leave the charge unanswered as being
unworthy of his notice….The affair gave my father much pain, but the
warm sympathy of those whose opinion he respected soon helped him to
let it pass into a well-merited oblivion."

The letters in the Cambridge University Library are
concerned with the notice Darwin should or should not take of Samuel
Butler's assaults, including the judgments of T. H. Huxley and
Leslie
Stephen, which have not been published before. Darwin wrote at the very
outset: "I have resolved to send one [a reply] as I can say something
in defence of my negligence". It is the story of how he yielded to his
advisers that I give fully, the ensuing silence only serving to confirm
Butler

in his persecution mania, so that his anger exploded in a
vacuum. Charles Darwin was prevailed on not to answer the attacks
against his own first instinct for reasons that turned mainly on saving
his dignity. This Butler perceived; and anything that seemed to him
shrouded in reverence was worth a shot. However basely he construed the
silence, the fact remains that he never got a clear and complete
account of how the mistake and the muddle in the Preface of the Life
of Erasmus Darwin had originated.

Henry Festing Jones, Butler's biographer and friend,
brought out a Pamphlet in 1911, now out of print, entitled Charles
Darwin and Samuel Butler, A Step toward Reconciliation. Francis
Darwin had helped to bring about this reconciliation by telling what he
knew, and producing documents that Festing Jones had not seen. Neither
had Francis Darwin seen Butler's Preface to the 2nd edition of Evolution
Old and New, written in April 1882, on hearing of the death of
Charles Darwin. In it Butler's enmity and sense of injury are subdued
in the common sorrow; Festing Jones read it to Francis Darwin when they
met in 1910 to discuss the Pamphlet. Had this Preface, with its
reasonable tone, come to Francis Darwin's notice, the last twenty years
of Butler's feud with Darwin must have run another course. But Butler
died in 1902, with this tragic understanding still unresolved. Francis
Darwin always regretted that he had not gone to him and had their
differences out face to face in the early days of the quarrel.

this involves me in a certain repetition of the narrative.
But the case in defence of Butler, written by his biographer and
friend, cannot be omitted by anyone deeply interested in this network
of personal Victorian history. The new material from Cambridge revealed
more than appeared in the Pamphlet alone, and I have therefore made the
whole story accessible by adding the new unpublished letters at the end
of the Pamphlet en bloc, marking their chronological position
by footnotes.

The exchange of letters to and from Down, some of
which
were sent to London by road in the Down carriage, with John the
coachman waiting to bring back the answers, shows how serious was the
flutter in the Darwin Dove-cot. The family rhyme:—

"Write a letter, write a letter,
Good advice will make us better,"

could not have been more explicitly obeyed.

In the following reprint of the Pamphlet (pp. 174-198), my
additions such as supplementary footnotes, are in square brackets. The
new unpublished letters A to L follow, pp. 202-216; and in conclusion,
a brief summary is given.

Those who have read Samuel Butler's books, Life and
Habit, Evolution Old and New, Unconscious Memory, and Luck or
Cunning? are aware that he did not agree entirely with Charles
Darwin on the subject of evolution. They also know that there was a
personal quarrel between the two men of which the story is told in
Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory. This story has appeared to
some of Butler's readers to be so strange, and to some of Darwin's
admirers so improbable, especially in regard to the conclusions which
Butler drew, that they have felt there must be an explanation. A
correspondence has recently taken place between Mr. Francis Darwin and
myself, and he has sent to me, as Butler's biographer, some letters
which throw light upon the controversy. From these, and from what has
passed between us, I have taken information for the Memoir of Butler
which I am writing, but as this Memoir may not be finished for some
time, and not published for some time longer, and Mr. Francis Darwin
agrees with me that in justice both to Charles Darwin and to Butler,
the explanation of what really occurred should be made public as soon
as possible, I have written the following pages for immediate
publication. Mr. F. Darwin has read the MS., and has kindly made
various suggestions of which I have taken advantage. He differs
entirely from nearly all Butler's opinions as here given (I did not
expect him to agree with them); nevertheless,

he is good enough to express himself as grateful for the
manner in which I have accepted and utilised the material supplied by
him. And I am grateful to him for having made it possible for me to
clear up an unfortunate misunderstanding.

The friendship between the families of Darwin and Butler
began many years ago. Charles Darwin's father, Robert, was the leading
doctor in Shrewsbury when Butler's grandfather, Dr. Butler, was
headmaster of Shrewsbury School. Charles Darwin and Butler's father,
Canon Butler, were schoolfellows at Shrewsbury, under Dr. Butler, and
undergraduates together at Cambridge. They spent the summer of 1828
together on a reading-party at Barmouth, and Canon Butler said of
Charles Darwin, "He inoculated me with a taste for Botany which has
stuck by me all my life." (Life and Letters of Charles Darwin,
by his son, Francis Darwin, Vol. I, 168).

The Origin of Species appeared in 1859 and
Butler read the book in New Zealand. "I became one of Mr. Darwin's many
enthusiastic admirers, and wrote a philosophic dialogue (the most
offensive form, except poetry and books of travel into supposed unknown
countries, that even literature can assume) upon the Origin of
Species. This production appeared in The Press,
Canterbury, in 1861 or 1862, but I have long lost the only copy I ever
had" (Unconscious Memory, Chapter I, p. 17).1 In
1872, when Butler published Erewhon, which is his own book of
travel into a supposed unknown country, he wrote to Charles Darwin to
explain what he meant by "The Book of the Machines": "I am sincerely
sorry that some of the critics should have thought I was laughing at
your theory, a thing which I never meant to do, and should be shocked
at having done."

Soon after this he paid two visits to Mr. Darwin at Down,
and thus became acquainted with all the family. Mr. Francis

[1 Reprinted in R. A.
Streatfield's A First Year in Canterbury Settlement, 1923, p.
155.]

Darwin and Butler saw a great deal of one another from
this time until 1877-8, when Butler published Life and Habit.
While he was writing this book Mr. Francis Darwin called upon him, and
spoke of Hering's theory, which refers all life to memory. "He came
September 26th, 1877" (Unconscious Memory, Chapter II). In Life
and Habit (December, 1877) it began to appear that Butler was
dissatisfied with much in Charles Darwin's writings, but there was as
yet no open breach between him and the Darwins.

In February, 1879, a German scientific journal called Kosmos
published an article by Dr. Krause about the Life and Works of Dr.
Erasmus Darwin.

In May, 1879, Butler, who had not then heard of the
article, published Evolution, Old and New, or The Theories of
Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck as compared with that of Mr.
Charles Darwin. One of the objects of this book was to show that
the idea of descent with modification did not originate with Charles
Darwin; and another was to restore mind to the universe, for Butler
thought that the tendency of Charles Darwin's writings was to give too
much prominence to accident at the expense of design in his theory of
evolution.

Mr. Darwin sent a copy of Butler's book to Dr. Krause,
because it was about Erasmus Darwin, and he knew that Dr. Krause was
revising his article for translation into English, but he hoped he
would "not expend much powder and shot on Mr. Butler, for he really is
not worthy of it. His work is merely ephemeral."

Dr. Krause went on revising his article, and in November,
1879, Mr. Murray published Erasmus Darwin, by Ernst Krause,
translated from the German by W. S. Dallas, with a preliminary notice
by Charles Darwin. It appears from the preface that Dr. Krause's
part of this book consists of his sketch of Erasmus Darwin, which had
appeared in Kosmos, and of which he had allowed Charles
Darwin and his brother Erasmus to

Mr. Dallas has undertaken the translation, and his
scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of German, is a
guarantee for its accuracy.

The preface goes on to say that Charles Darwin, having
private materials for adding to the knowledge of Erasmus Darwin's
character, had written a preliminary notice. Particulars are given, two
books (Miss Seward's Life of Dr. Darwin and Dr. Dowson's Lecture
on Erasmus Darwin) are mentioned, and at the end of the preface is
this second footnote:—

Since the publication of Dr. Krause's article Mr. Butler's
work Evolution Old and New, 1879, has appeared, and this
includes an account of Dr. Darwin's life, compiled from the two books
just mentioned, and of his views on evolution.

Butler read Erasmus Darwin in English and,
knowing nothing of the revision, was puzzled. He sent to Germany for
the Kosmos of February, 1879, and was more puzzled. He wrote
to Mr. Darwin on the 2nd January, 1880, asking for an explanation—"an
explanation which," as he says in Chapter IV of Unconscious Memory,
"I would have gladly strained a good many points to have accepted"—and
Mr. Darwin replied the next day. These are the two letters:—

Samuel Butler to Charles
Darwin

January 2nd, 1880

Dear Sir,

Will you kindly refer me to the edition of Kosmos
which contains the text of Dr. Krause's article on Dr. Erasmus Darwin,
as translated by Mr. W. S. Dallas?

I have before me the last February number of Kosmos,
which appears by your preface to be the one from which

Mr. Dallas has translated, but his translation contains
long and important passages which are not in the February number of Kosmos,
while many passages in the original are omitted in the translation.

Among the passages introduced are the last six pages of
the English article, which seem to condemn by anticipation the position
I have taken as regards Erasmus Darwin in my book Evolution Old
and New, and which I believe I was the first to take. The
concluding, and therefore, perhaps, most prominent sentence of the
translation you have given to the public stands thus:—

"Erasmus Darwin's system was in itself a most significant
first step in the path of knowledge his grandson has opened up for us,
but to wish to revive it at the present day, as has actually been
seriously attempted, shows a weakness of thought and a mental
anachronism which no one can envy."

The Kosmos which has been sent me from Germany
contains no such passage.

As you have stated in your preface that my book, Evolution
Old and New, appeared subsequently to Dr. Krause's article, and as
no intimation is given that the article has been altered and added to
since its original appearance, while the accuracy of the translation,
as though from the February number of Kosmos is, as you
expressly say, guaranteed by Mr. Dallas's "scientific reputation,
together with his knowledge of German," your readers will naturally
suppose that all they read in the translation appeared in February
last, and therefore before Evolution Old and New was written,
and therefore independently of, and necessarily without reference to,
that book.

I do not doubt that this was actually the case, but have
failed to obtain the edition which contains the passage above referred
to, and several others which appear in the translation.

therefore, to ask for the explanation, which I do not
doubt you will readily give me.—Yours faithfully, S. BUTLER

Charles Darwin to Samuel
Butler

January 3rd, 1880

My dear Sir,

Dr. Krause, soon after the appearance of his article in Kosmos,
told me that he intended to publish it separately and to alter it
considerably, and the altered MS. was sent to Mr. Dallas for
translation. This is so common a practice that it never occurred to me
to state that the article had been modified; but now I much regret that
I did not do so. The original will soon appear in German, and I believe
will be a much larger book than the English one; for, with Dr. Krause's
consent, many long extracts from Miss Seward were omitted (as well as
much other matter) from being in my opinion superfluous for the English
reader. I believe that the omitted parts will appear as notes in the
German edition. Should there be a reprint of the English Life, I will
state that the original as it appeared in Kosmos was modified
by Dr. Krause before it was translated. I may add that I had obtained
Dr. Krause's consent for a translation, and had arranged with Mr.
Dallas before your book was announced. I remember this because Mr.
Dallas wrote to tell me of the advertisement.—I remain, Yours
faithfully, C. DARWIN.

Butler was not satisfied with this reply, and wrote to the
Athenæum, 31st January, 1880. His letter recapitulates some of
the facts which have just been set forth, but since something turns on
the tone of it, I give it in full, with apologies for the repetition. I
have, however, omitted the postscript, which comments on reviews of Erasmus
Darwin and of Evolu-

tion Old and New and, for our present purpose,
does not materially add to the letter.

S. Butler to the Editor of the Athenæum

EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW

I beg leave to lay before you the following facts:—

On February 22, 1879, my book Evolution Old and New
was announced. It was published May 3, 1879. It contained a comparison
of the theory of evolution as propounded by Dr. Erasmus Darwin with
that of his grandson, Mr. Charles Darwin, the preference being
decidedly given to the earlier writer. It also contained other matter
which I could not omit, but which I am afraid may have given some
offence to Mr. Darwin and his friends.

In November, 1879, Mr. Charles Darwin's Life of
Erasmus Darwin appeared. It is to the line which Mr. Darwin has
taken in connexion with this volume that I wish to call attention.

Mr. Darwin states in his preface that he is giving to the
public a translation of an article by Dr. Krause, which appeared "in
the February number of a well-known German scientific journal, Kosmos,"
then just entered on its second year. He adds in a note that the
translator's "scientific reputation, together with his knowledge of
German, is a guarantee for its accuracy." This is equivalent, I
imagine, to guaranteeing the accuracy himself.

In a second note, upon the following page, he says that my
work Evolution Old and New "has appeared since the
publication of Dr. Krause's article." He thus distinctly precludes his
readers from supposing that any passage they may meet with could have
been written by the light of, or with reference to, my book.

On reading the English translation I found in it one point
which appeared to have been taken from Evolution old

and New, and another which clearly and
indisputably was so; I also found more than one paragraph, but
especially the last—and perhaps most prominent in the book, as making
the impression it was most desired the reader should carry away with
him—which it was hard to believe was not written at myself; but I found
no acknowledgment of what seemed taken from Evolution old and New,
nor any express reference to it.

In the face of the English translation itself, it was
incredible that the writer had written without my work before him; in
the face of the preface it was no less incredible that Mr. Darwin
should have distinctly told his readers that he was giving them one
article, when he must have perfectly well known that he was giving them
another and very different one.

I therefore sent for the February number of Kosmos
and compared the original with what purported to be the translation. I
found many passages of the German omitted, and many in the English
article were wholly wanting in the German. Among these latter were the
passages I had conceived to be taken from me and the ones which were
most adverse to me.

Dr. Krause's article begins on p. 131 of Mr. Darwin's
book. There is new matter on pp. 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138,
139, while almost the whole of pp. 147-152 inclusive, and all the last
six pages are not to be found in the supposed original.

I then wrote to Mr. Darwin, putting the facts before him
as they appeared to myself, and asking for an explanation; I received
answer that Dr. Krause's article had been altered since publication,
and that the altered MS. had been sent for translation. "This is so
common a practice," writes Mr. Darwin, with that "happy simplicity" of
which the Pall Mall Gazette (December 12th, 1879) declares
him "to be a master," "that it never occurred to me to state that the

article had been modified; but now I much regret that I
did not do so." Mr. Darwin further says that, should there be a reprint
of the English life of Dr. Darwin, he will state that the original as
it appeared in Kosmos was modified by Dr. Krause. He does
not, however, either deny or admit that the modification of the article
was made by the light of, and with a view to, my book.

It is doubtless a common practice for writers to take an
opportunity of revising their works, but it is not common when a covert
condemnation of an opponent has been interpolated into a revised
edition, the revision of which has been concealed, to declare with
every circumstance of distinctness that the condemnation was written
prior to the book which might appear to have called it forth, and thus
lead readers to suppose that it must be an unbiassed opinion.

S. BUTLER

On reading this letter in the Athenæum, Charles
Darwin looked up his papers and found that when he wrote to Butler, 3rd
January, he had forgotten something. His instinct was to write to the Athenæum,
and explain what had happened, but his intention was not carried into
effect. He prepared two letters, the drafts of which are among the
papers sent me by Mr. F. Darwin.1

PROPOSED LETTER NO. I

Charles Darwin to the Editor of the
Athenæum.

Down, Beckenham, January 24th 80

Sir,—Mr. Butler in his letter in your last number seems to
think me guilty of intentional duplicity in not having stated in the
preface to my notice of the life of Erasmas Darwin, that Dr. Krause had
considerably altered the article in Kosmos before he sent it
to Mr. Dallas for translation. In my private letter to Mr. Butler I
said that it was so common

a practice for an author to alter an article before its
republication, that it never occurred to me to state that this had been
done in the present case. Afterwards a dim recollection crossed my mind
that I had written something on the subject, and I looked at the first
proof received from Messrs. Clowes and found in it the following
passage, here copied verbatim:—

To the Compositor; Be so good as to insert inverted commas
to the whole of this extract:—

"Dr. Krause has taken great pains, and has added largely
to his essay as it appeared in Kosmos; and my preliminary
notice, having been written before I had seen the additions,
unfortunately contains much repetition of what Dr. Krause has said. In
fact, the present volume contains two distinct biographies, of which I
have no doubt that by Dr. Krause is much the best. I have left it
almost wholly to him to treat of what Dr. Darwin has done in science,
more especially in regard to evolution."

The proof sheet was sent to Dr. Krause, with a letter in
which I said that on further reflection it seemed to me absurd to
publish two accounts of the life of the same man in the same volume;
and that as my Notice was drawn up chiefly from unpublished documents,
it appeared to me best that my account alone of the life should appear
in England, with his account of the scientific works of Erasmus Darwin,
but that he could, of course, publish the extracts from Miss Seward,
etc., in the German edition. Dr. Krause, with the liberality and
kindness which has characterised all his conduct towards me, agreed
instantly to my suggestion; but added that he thought it better that
the text of the German edition should correspond with the English one,
and that he would add the extracts, etc., in a supplement or in
footnotes. He then expressly asked me to strike out the passage above
quoted, which I did; and having done so, it did not

occur to me to add, as I ought to have done, that the
retained parts of Dr. Krause's article had been much modified. It seems
to me that anyone on comparing the article in Kosmos with the
translation, and on finding many passages at the beginning omitted, and
many towards the end added, might have inferred that the author had
enlarged and improved it, without suspecting a deep scheme of
duplicity. Finally, I may state, as I did in my letter to Mr. Butler,
that I obtained Dr. Krause's permission for a translation of his
article to appear in England, and Mr. Dallas agreed to translate it,
before I heard of any announcement of Mr. Butler's last book.

He is mistaken in supposing that I was offended by this
book, for I looked only at the part about the life of Erasmus Darwin; I
did not even look at the part about evolution; for I had found in his
former work that I could not make his views harmonize with what I knew.
I was, indeed, told that this part contained some bitter sarcasms
against me; but this determined me all the more not to read it.

As Mr. Butler evidently does not believe my deliberate
assertion that the omission of any statement that Dr. Krause had
altered his article before sending it for translation, was
unintentional or accidental I think that I shall be justified in
declining to answer any future attack which Mr. Butler may make on
me.—Sir, Your obedient servant,

CHARLES DARWIN

The sentence "He is mistaken…not to read it" is marked
as having been objected to, and there is a note showing that the whole
letter was disapproved of by all Mr. Darwin's family. I cannot explain
why this proposed letter is dated 24th January, 1880.1
Butler's letter certainly did not appear

[1 The covering letter to Mrs.
Litchfield is clearly dated February 1st in the original. The date on
the draft of Letter No. 1 in Cambridge University Library looks as
though it had been added later. Possibly reference to a calendar after
the letter had been written led to the mistake of exactly one week.—N.
B.]

till 31st January. It is possible it may have been ready
for and crowded out of the preceding number of the Athenæum
(24th January), and that Darwin had seen it in proof, but this seems
unlikely. Nothing, however, turns upon the point.1

The foregoing letter being "disapproved by everyone" the
draft of a second was prepared:—

PROPOSED LETTER NO. II

Charles Darwin
to the Editor of
the Athenæum

Down,
Beckenham, Kent, February 1st, 1880

EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW

Sir,—In regard to the letter from Mr. Butler which
appeared in your columns last week under the above heading, I wish to
state that the omission of any mention of the alterations made by Dr.
Krause in his article before it was re-published had no connection
whatever with Mr. Butler. I find in the first proofs received from
Messrs. Clowes the words: "Dr. Krause had added largely to his essay as
it appeared in Kosmos." These words were afterwards
accidentally omitted, and when I wrote privately to Mr. Butler I had
forgotten that they had ever been written. (I could explain distinctly
how the accident arose, but the explanation does not seem to me worth
giving.)2 This omission, as I have already said, I much
regret. It is a mere illusion on the part of Mr. Butler to suppose that
it could make any difference to me whether or not the public knew that
Dr. Krause's article had been added to or altered before being
translated. The additions were made quite independently of any
suggestion or wish on my part.

(As Mr. Butler evidently does not believe my deliberate
assertion that the above omission was unintentional, I must decline any
further discussion with him)1—

Sir, Your obedient servant, CHARLES DARWIN

This letter did not meet with the approval of all the
Darwin family, and it was decided that it should be submitted to
Professor Huxley for his opinion.2

Charles Darwin to T. H.
Huxley

Down,
Beckenham, Kent, February 2nd, 1880

My dear Huxley,—I am going to ask you to [do] me a great
kindness. Mr. Butler has attacked me bitterly, in fact, accusing me of
lying, duplicity, and God knows what, because I unintentionally omitted
to state that Krause had enlarged his Kosmos article before
sending it for translation. I have written the enclosed letter
[Proposed letter No. II] to the Athenæum, but Litchfield [Mr.
Darwin's son-in-law] is strongly opposed to my making any answer, and I
enclose his letter, if you can find time to read it. Of the other
members of my family, some are for and some against answering. I should
rather like to show that I had intended to state that Krause had
enlarged his article. On the other hand a clever and unscrupulous man
like Mr. Butler would be sure to twist whatever I may say against me;
and the longer the controversy lasts the more degrading it is to me. If
my letter is printed, both the Litchfields want me to omit the two
sentences now marked by pencil brackets, but I see no reason for the
omission.

Now will you do me the lasting kindness to read carefully
the attack and my answer, and as I have unbounded confidence in your
judgment whatever you advise that I will do: whether you advise me to
make no answer or to send

the enclosed letter as it stands, or to strike out the
sentences between the brackets?—

Ever yours sincerely, CHARLES DARWIN

P.S.—Since writing the above I have received another
letter from Litchfield with a splendid imaginary letter from Butler,
showing how he probably would travesty my answer. He tells me that he
took the Athenæum to Mr. P[ollock] and asked him (without
giving any hint of his own opinion) whether Butler's attack ought to be
answered, and he said "No". But I wait in anxiety for your answer as
this will decide me.

The two sentences marked by pencil brackets are "I could
explain…worth giving," and "As Mr. Butler…with him". Professor
Huxley's opinion was that the letter should not be sent; he thought
that a note in a future edition of Erasmus Darwin would meet
the case. Letter No. II was accordingly rejected.1

It appears from the papers sent me by Mr. F. Darwin that
something else weighed with Charles Darwin and his advisers besides
Professor Huxley's opinion, namely, that Butler's letter to the Athenæum
was "so ungentlemanlike as not to deserve an answer," as to which the
reader has the material for forming his own opinion.

Charles Darwin to T. H.
Huxley

Down,
Beckenham, Kent, Feb. 4 [1880]

My dear Huxley,—Oh Lord what a relief your letter has been
to me. I feel like a man condemned to be hung who has just got a
reprieve. I saw in the future no end of trouble, but I feared that I
was bound in honour to answer. If you were here I would show you
exactly how the omission

The affair has annoyed and pained me to a silly extent;
but it would be disagreeable to anyone to be publicly called in fact a
liar. He seems to hint that I interpolated sentences in Krause's MS.,
but he could hardly have really thought so. Until quite recently he
expressed great friendship for me, and said he had learnt all he knew
about evolution from my books, and I have no idea what has made him so
bitter against me. You have done me a great kindness.

Mr. Francis Darwin and some of his brothers disagreed with
Huxley, and thought that their father ought to write. It is, of course,
idle to say so now, but I wish Darwin had followed his son's advice and
neglected that of Huxley. Butler would not have had to strain any point
to accept his statement that he had written the words, and that they
had been struck out inadvertently. He would not, and could not have
twisted it against him, though he might have had something to say about
his not believing the "deliberate assertion that the omission of any
statement that Dr. Krause had altered his article before sending it for
translation was unintentional or accidental," because he found no such
"deliberate assertion" in Darwin's letter to him of 3rd January, 1880.
What he found there was an assertion that to alter an article on
republication is so common a practice that it never occurred to Darwin
to mention it. He took this to mean that Darwin had done what he did on
purpose. He would have had to know more than he was told in the letter
of 3rd January, 1880, before he could have understood in what way the
words "unintentional" and "accidental" could be properly applied to
what had happened. We can now see that the inadvertence consisted in
Darwin's not noticing that he was striking out of his preface more than
he intended. So long as the words stating that Dr. Krause had altered
his article between February

and November were there, all was well; the first footnote
guaranteed the accuracy of the translation of the modified article,
and the second footnote explained how it had been possible for Dr.
Krause to make the modifications with Butler's book before him. But
when the words were struck out, the unforeseen result followed that the
meaning of both the footnotes became altered. The first footnote about
Mr. Dallas now referred to the unmodified article, and
practically declared that it had been translated as it originally
appeared in Kosmos; and the second note, that Evolution
Old and New had appeared since Kosmos, confirmed this
meaning by implying particularly that nothing in the translated article
could possibly have got there in consequence of Evolution Old and
New.

In 1880 Butler published Unconscious Memory,
wherein he told the story over again, and very fully. The reader may
perhaps ask: Why should he do so? What could it matter to him? How was
he damnified by what had been done? And it may be conceded that if he
had issued a writ claiming damages and Darwin had paid into Court one
shilling, no jury would have awarded him more. But Butler was not
thinking of shillings or pounds. He shows in Chapter IV of Unconscious
Memory that the personal damage he considered himself to have
sustained consisted in Darwin's having made it appear that if anything
condemnatory of Evolution Old and New was to be found in Dr.
Krause's translated article, "it was an undesigned coincidence and
would show how little worthy I must be to consideration when my
opinions were refuted in advance by one who could have no bias in
regard to them." Later in the chapter, he writes as follows:

By far the most important notice of Evolution Old and
New was that taken by Mr. Darwin himself; for I can hardly be
mistaken in believing that Dr. Krause's article would have been allowed
to repose unaltered in the pages of the well-

known German scientific journal, Kosmos, unless
something had happened to make Mr. Darwin feel that his reticence
concerning his grandfather must now be ended….

This (Darwin's letter of 3rd January, 1880) was not a
letter I could accept. If Mr. Darwin had said that by some
inadvertence, which he was unable to excuse or account for, a blunder
had been made which he would at once correct so far as was in his power
by a letter to the Times or the Athenæum, and that
a notice of the erratum should be printed on a fly-leaf and pasted into
all unsold copies of the Life of Erasmus Darwin, there would
have been no more heard of the matter from me; but when Mr. Darwin
maintained that it was a common practice to take advantage of an
opportunity of revising a work to interpolate a covert attack upon an
opponent, and at the same time to misdate the interpolated matter by
expressly stating that it appeared months sooner than it actually did,
and prior to the work which it attacked; when he maintained that what
was being done was "so common a practice that it never occurred" to
him—the writer of some twenty volumes—to do what all literary men must
know to be inexorably requisite, I thought this was going far beyond
what was permissible in honourable warfare, and that it was time, in
the interests of literary and scientific morality, even more than in my
own, to appeal to public opinion.

In developing this subject Butler uses the personal
quarrel as an occasion for referring to Charles Darwin's treatment of
Buffon, Erasmus Darwin, Lamarck, and the author of The Vestiges of
Creation, in order to show that his indignation was aroused on
behalf of these writers, "to all of whom," he considered, "Mr. Darwin
had dealt the same measure which he was now dealing to myself." It is
necessary just to mention this, lest it should be thought that Butler
was complaining selfishly, but to say more would be to raise a question
that is

fully discussed from Butler's point of view in Evolution
Old and New, and to neglect the personal quarrel with which alone
we are now concerned.

When Unconscious Memory was published, the
question arose as to what was to be done with regard to Butler's
repetition of his accusation, and again there was disagreement among
the members of the Darwin family. Mr. Francis Darwin and some of his
brothers wished "that a fly-sheet should be inserted in the unsold
copies of the Life of Erasmus Darwin, stating as an erratum
on p. 1, 10 lines from top, that Krause's article in Kosmos
was altered and enlarged before it was sent to Mr. Dallas for
translation." The other members of the family did not agree, and Unconscious
Memory was sent to Mr. (afterwards Sir) Leslie Stephen for his
opinion. He advised that nothing should be done, and this advice was
adopted.1

On the 19th April, 1882, Charles Darwin died. Butler was
at the time bringing out a new edition of Evolution Old and New,
with an Appendix consisting of two chapters of which the first was
about the reviews of the first edition, and contained this sentence:—

The way in which Mr. Charles Darwin met Evolution Old
and New has been so fully dealt with in my book Unconscious
Memory; in the Athenæum, Jan. 31, 1880; the St.
James's Gazette, Dec. 8, 1880; and Nature, Feb. 3, 1881,
that I need not return to it here, more especially as Mr. Darwin has,
by his silence, admitted that he has no defence to make.

This is the preface to the second edition of Evolution
Old and New, it is dated 21st April, 1882:—

Since the proof sheets of the Appendix to this book left
my hands, finally corrected, and too late for me to be able to re-cast
the first of the two chapters that compose it,

I hear, with the most profound regret, of the death of Mr.
Charles Darwin.

It being still possible for me to refer to this event in a
preface, I hasten to say how much it grates upon me to appear to renew
my attack upon Mr. Darwin under present circumstances.

I have insisted in each of my three books on Evolution
upon the immensity of the service which Mr. Darwin rendered to that
transcendently important theory. In Life and Habit I said:
"To the end of time, if the question be asked, 'Who taught people to
believe in Evolution?' the answer must be that it was Mr. Darwin." This
is true; and it is hard to see what palm of higher praise can be
awarded to any philosopher.

I have always admitted myself to be under the deepest
obligations to Mr. Darwin's works; and it was with the greatest
reluctance, not to say repugnance, that I became one of his opponents.
I have partaken of his hospitality, and have had too much experience of
the charming simplicity of his manner not to be among the readiest to
at once admire and envy it. It is unfortunately true that I believe Mr.
Darwin to have behaved badly to me; this is too notorious to be denied;
but at the same time I cannot be blind to the fact that no man can be
judge in his own case, and that, after all, Mr. Darwin may have been
right and I wrong.

At the present moment, let me impress this latter
alternative upon my mind as far as possible, and dwell only upon that
side of Mr. Darwin's work and character about which there is no
difference of opinion among either his admirers or his opponents.1

Butler ought perhaps to have sent a copy of this book to
Mr. Francis Darwin. He did not do so, I suppose, because he

shrank from intruding upon him with his own affairs at
such a moment; and no doubt he also trusted to its coming to his notice
in the ordinary course. But Mr. Francis Darwin did not see the book,
and knew nothing about this preface till I read it to him in November,
1910.

At the end of 1887 Mr. Francis Darwin published The
Life and Letters of Charles Darwin. It contains this passage, III,
220:—

The publication of the Life of Erasmus Darwin
led to an attack by Mr. Samuel Butler, which amounted to a charge of
falsehood against my father. After consulting his friends, he came to
the determination to leave the charge unanswered, as being unworthy of
his notice. (Footnote by Mr. F. Darwin: He had, in a letter to
Mr. Butler, expressed his regret at the oversight which caused so much
offence.) Those who wish to know more of the matter, may gather the
facts of the case from Ernst Krause's Charles Darwin, and
they will find Mr. Butler's statement of his grievance in the Athenæum,
January 31, 1880, and in the St. James's Gazette, December 8,
1880. The affair gave my father much pain, but the warm sympathy of
those whose opinion he respected soon helped him to let it pass into a
well-merited oblivion.

On this, Butler wrote to the Athenæum, 26th
November, 1887, reiterating his accusation and complaining that Charles
Darwin had taken no step towards a public correction of his
mis-statement.

About the same time Mr. Francis Darwin published a new
edition of Erasmus Darwin, and fulfilled his father's promise
to Butler by adding to the preface a third footnote:—

Mr. Darwin accidentally omitted to mention that Dr. Krause
revised, and made certain alterations to, his Essay before it was
translated. Among these additions

Butler saw that this third footnote changed the sense
which the other two footnotes had borne when they stood alone in the
preface to the first edition, and wrote to the Academy, 17th
December, 1887: "Mr. Francis Darwin has now stultified his father's
preface." In so writing he did not know, and he had no means of
knowing, that Mr. Francis Darwin's third footnote had restored to the
preface the meaning which Charles Darwin had originally intended it to
bear.

Butler noted several public allusions to Life and
Habit by Mr. Francis Darwin. Here are two of such allusions. At
the Cardiff Meeting of the British Association in 1891, Mr. F. Darwin
read a paper, published in the Annals of Botany (VI, 1892), On
the Artificial Production of Rhythm in Plants, by Francis Darwin
and Dorothea F. M. Pertz, in which the following sentence occurs: "This
repeating power may be that fundamental property of living matter which
stretches from inheritance on one side to memory on the other (see Mr.
Samuel Butler's Life and Habit)."

In 1901 Mr. F. Darwin delivered a lecture at the Glasgow
Meeting of the British Association On the Movements of Plants.
The report in Nature, 14th November, 1901, contains this
sentence: "If we take the wide view of memory which has been set forth
by Mr. S. Butler (Life and Habit, 1878) and by Professor
Hering, we shall be forced to believe that plants, like all other
living things, have a kind of memory."

Butler died on the 18th June, 1902.1

In 1908, when President of the British Association, in his
Inaugural Address at Dublin, Mr. Francis Darwin paid Butler the
posthumous honour of quoting from his translation of Hering's lecture On
Memory which is in Unconscious Memory, and of mentioning
Butler as having independently arrived at

a theory similar to Hering's. (See the report in Nature,
3rd September, 1908.)

It is partly because of these public allusions to Life
and Habit, by Mr. F. Darwin, that Butler is now more considered
than he was formerly, and that it is being understood at last how
serious a purpose underlies his humour.

In May, 1910, Mr. Streatfeild, as Butler's literary
executor, published a new edition of Unconscious Memory with
an introduction by Professor Marcus Hartog, summarising Butler's views
on biology, and defining his position in the world of science. It
seemed a fortunate moment for this reprint to appear, first, because of
Mr. Francis Darwin's Presidential Address; secondly, because many
sheets of the original edition of the book had been destroyed in a fire
at Ballantyne's some years before, so that anyone who might have wanted
to refer to Hering's address would be unable to obtain Butler's
translation of it; and, thirdly, because of the changed views of
scientific men in regard to biology, and what is called "Darwinism."

In June, 1910, Mr. Francis Darwin put himself into
communication with me, and sent me the letters as I have said above. If
he had sent them before, instead of after the new edition of Unconscious
Memory was published, Mr. Streatfeild would have included the
substance of these pages as a note or addendum to that book, for it is
there that these facts ought to be recorded. In the course of our
correspondence I asked Mr. F. Darwin whether he consented to my making
public the fact that he and some of his brothers disapproved of the
advice given by Huxley and Leslie Stephen; at the same time I inquired
whether he had had any other special reason for sending me the papers.
He gave his consent, and added: "I had hoped that the general
impression of the papers sent you would have led you to suspect that
Butler was mistaken, but I do not mean to complain if this is not in
any degree the case."

I understood him to mean mistaken in supposing that Mr.
Darwin had undertaken his book Erasmus Darwin because of or
with reference to Evolution Old and New. Even in 1879-80,
when the events were proceeding, I had suspected that Butler might have
been mistaken in this, and I, therefore, told Mr. F. Darwin so. I could
not tell him that my suspicion arose in consequence of reading the
letters he sent me, but I may now say that on reading them, and
thinking them over again, I have become convinced that Butler must have
been mistaken. Further, I am sure that if he had known what we know now
he would have been confirmed in what he wrote in his preface to the
second edition of Evolution Old and New, that Charles Darwin
may have been right and he wrong, and would have taken or made an
opportunity of putting the matter straight.

The case then stood thus: Butler's accusation was in three
counts:—

(1) That Charles Darwin undertook Erasmus Darwin
because of
or with reference to Evolution Old and New;

(2) That his preface contained an error;

(3) That he made a mistake in the line he took when the
error was
pointed out to him.

Mr. F. Darwin admitted (3) by saying that he disapproved
of the way in which the matter was treated; I gave up (1) by admitting
that Butler must have been mistaken; and we agreed about (2).

Having reached this point, Mr. F. Darwin wrote in a
subsequent letter: "I have often regretted that when the quarrel began
I did not go to Butler and have it out viva voce. I also
think I was mistaken in not publishing in Life and Letters a
full account of the thing." This reminded me of something in Butler's
note-books, viz. an account of how a lady, whom Butler knew, met Mr.
Francis Darwin at Cambridge, in 1894, and they spoke about the quarrel,
Mr. F. Darwin saying to her much the same as he wrote to me. The lady
repeated the

conversation to Butler, and he derived the impression that
Mr. F. Darwin regretted the incident, and would be glad to arrive at a
reconciliation. But remembering his preface to the second edition of Evolution
Old and New, and assuming that Mr. F. Darwin had seen it, he felt
that it was impossible for him to make any further move, and though he
would have welcomed any public move from the other side, none was made,
and nothing happened. This note showed me that I had treated the
opportunity given me by Mr. F. Darwin in the spirit in which Butler
himself would have treated it if it had been offered to him.

Darwin and Butler cannot now meet and adjust their
differences; nevertheless, unknown to themselves they have met and
parted and met again in the correspondence that has taken place between
Mr. Francis Darwin and myself; I trust we have succeeded in composing
their quarrel in so far as it may be given to the representatives of
dead men to act for them. All the time there has been running in my
head the sonnet about immortality which Butler wrote in 1898, for I
know that, though he was thinking of immortality in a broad sense, he
had not forgotten his dispute with Charles Darwin, whose pupil he had
been, and whom he also held as foe.

Μellonta tauta

Not on sad Stygian shore, nor in clear
sheen
Of far Elysian plain, shall we meet
those
Among the dead whose pupils we have been,
Nor those great shades
whom we have held as foes;
No meadow of ashpodel our feet shall tread,
Nor shall we look each other in the
face
To love or hate each other, being
dead,
Hoping some praise, or fearing some disgrace.

We shall not argue, saying "'Twas thus" or
"Thus,"
Our argument's whole drift we shall forget;
Who's
right, who's wrong, 'twill be all one to us;
We shall not even know that we have
met.
Yet meet we shall and part and meet again
Where dead men meet, on lips of living men.

[Here
ends Festing Jones's Pamphlet]

The letters which follow from the Cambridge University
Library, fill in gaps in the already complicated structure of the
Pamphlet. Page cross-references will show where they should be inserted
chronologically. I will begin, however, by quoting three letters from
Samuel Butler written before the quarrel,1 when he was
still a whole-hearted humble admirer of Charles Darwin. Resentment had
not then warped his saner judgment.

15 Clifford's Inn, Oct. 1st
1865

Dear Sir,

……My study is art, and anything else I may
indulge in is only by-play;….

I always delighted in your origin of species as soon as I
saw it out in New Zealand,—not as knowing anything whatsoever of
natural history, but it enters into so many deeply interesting
questions, or rather it suggests so many that it thoroughly fascinated
me.…

Six years later Butler published Erewhon and
some critics believed that it formed an attack on the Origin of
Species; hence the disclaimer in this letter.

I venture upon the liberty of writing to you about a
portion of the little book Erewhon which I have lately
published and which I am afraid has been a good deal misunderstood. I
refer to the chapter on Machines in which I have developed and worked
out the obviously absurd theory that they are about to supplant the
human race and be developed into a higher kind of life.

When I first got hold of the idea I developed it for mere
fun, and because it amused me and I thought it would amuse others, but
without a particle of serious meaning; but I developed it and
introduced (it) into Erewhon with the intention of implying
"See how easy it is to be plausible, and what absurd propositions can
be defended by a little ingenuity and distortion and departure from
strictly scientific methods," and I had Butler's Analogy in
my head as the book at which it should be aimed, but preferred to
conceal my aim for many reasons. Firstly the book was already as
heavily weighted with heterodoxy as it would bear, and I dare not give
another half ounce lest it should break the camel's back; secondly it
would have interfered with the plausibility of the argument, and I
looked to this plausibility as a valuable aid to the general
acceptation of the book: thirdly it is more amusing without any sort of
explanation, and I thought the drier part that had gone before wanted a
little relieving; also the more enigmatic a thing of this sort is, the
more people think for themselves about it, on the principle that
advertisers ask "Where is Eliza?" and "Who's Griffiths?" I therefore
thought it unnecessary to give any disclaimer of an intention of being
disrespectful to the Origin of Species a book for which I can
never be sufficiently grateful, though I am well aware how utterly
incapable I am of forming any opinion on a scientific subject which is
worth a moment's consideration.

However you have a position which nothing can shake and I
know very well that any appearance of ridicule would do your theories
no harm whatever, and that they could afford a far more serious satire
than anything in Erewhon—the only question was how far I
could afford to be misrepresented as disbelieving in things which I
believe most firmly.…I am sincerely sorry that some of the critics
should have thought that I was laughing at your theory, a thing which I
never meant to do, and should be shocked at having done.

I am Sir, Yours respectfully,

S. BUTLER

Even in 1873 friendly intercourse still continued. The
Fair Haven had been published, and Darwin had written an
appreciative letter. Butler's mother had died, and her death coinciding
with the publication of The Fair Haven with its
anti-religious implications, gave Butler an acute sense of guilt.

Clifford's Inn, 15/4/73

Dear Mr. Darwin,

Your very kind letter concerning The Fair Haven
was forwarded to me at Mentone from which place I returned on Sunday
morning early. You will doubtless have seen the cause of my journey in The
Times obituary list.

Had I known how ill my poor mother was I could not have
brought out or even written my book at such a time, but her recovery
was confidently expected till within a fortnight of her death, and it
was not until I actually arrived at Mentone that I knew how
long she must have been ill and suffering. I must own that I feel that
there is something peculiarly unsuitable in the time of my book's
appearing but it was actually published before I was aware of the
circumstances. I am thankful that she can never know.

Of course it remains to be seen what the verdict of the
public will be but I am greatly encouraged by the letters received from
yourself and Mr. Stephen…I shall try a novel pure and simple with
little "purpose" next, but it remains to be seen whether I can do it. I
would say that I have no "purpose" in my novel at all, but I am still
in the flesh and however much the spirit may be willing I fear that the
cloven hoof will show itself ever and anon.…

Again thanking you very sincerely for all the kindness you
have shown me, with kind regards to Mrs. Darwin,

Yours very truly

S.
BUTLER

The following sequence of letters form the unpublished
background of doubt and indecision caused by the events described in
the Festing Jones Pamphlet, pp. 167-198.

Charles Darwin sent the draft of Proposed letter No. 1—his
first suggested answer to S. Butler—with the following covering Letter
A to his daughter, Mrs. Litchfield. The family at Down seem to have
wavered about an answer. On January 26 1880, Emma (Mrs. Darwin) wrote
to her son George who was abroad:—

"F[father] is a good deal bothered by S. Butler's attack
which is expected in the Athenæum. He wrote a note to
F[father] saying he was going to lay 'all the facts' before the public.
We are all anxious that he should take no notice of it."

Will you and Litchfield read article in Athenæum
and my answer.—I have resolved to send one, as I can say something in
defence of my negligence.—I wish my letter to appear in next number and
I should like to see proof, so if you do not object to anything greatly
please post it on Monday addressed to Editor of Athenæum with my
note to Editor; and return the Athenæum to me.

If you or Litchfield object very strongly to anything,
please return my letter here that I may post it on Tuesday. The Athenæum
is published on Friday evening. There is one sentence of which Frank
suggested the insertion; but I am doubtful and so is your Mother.—It is
on separate paper, and if inserted please gum it in by cutting p. 3 in
two pieces before the last paragraph, beginning with words "As Mr.
Butler evidently does not believe etc."

It is very disagreeable being accused of duplicity and
falsehood.

All here approve of letter.

Since the above was written I have by advice of Frank and
Leonard re-written my letter and shortened it. I hope that you and
L[itchfield] may approve of it. If you do not I cannot promise to
follow your advice, but it shall be well considered.

I am sure that neither of you will grudge the bother of
considering the case.—Mr. Butler's letter is very artful: he throughout
makes it appear as if I had written Dr. Krause's part.

When I read Butler's statement at the Club yesterday I was
much relieved to find it was of a kind which, as I thought, made any
answer absolutely unnecessary. Neither in form, nor in substance,
is it such as to suggest that a reply is expected. You will discern
that it does not, in common with newspaper attacks, ask for any further
information or explanation, or touch any point of fact on which either
the assailant, or a reader, could require such. In short, I never was
clearer about anything than that, if it were my case, I should say
nothing.

I tried, a second time, to read the statement, as if I
were an outsider who knew nothing of the quarrel, and felt entirely
sure this is the right conclusion.

Not one reader in a thousand will make head or tail of the
grievance. It's all muddled up with complaints against divers
reviewers.—This alone practically neutralizes any effect it might have
had otherwise. Then if an attentive reader does care to look
back and see what the complaint was he will also see (though in a brief
form) your substantial reply; and this is, on the face of it,
sufficient for the purpose. All the rest of B's insinuations read to an
outsider as merely the annoyance and venom of a man out of temper and
hitting wildly about him.

If you answer him you bring about exactly the
result he most wants, wh is to fill people's heads with the notion that
yr book is in some way a reply or rejoinder to his: in fact you make it
a "Darwin-Butler affaire" as the French wd say—and this is what will
delight him.

As it stands there is nothing wh any friend of yors or any
absolutely indifferent person cd want explained or answered, and the tone
of Butler is of itself quite enough to deprive him of any shadow of claim
to an answer wh a loyal or friendly correspondent might have.

What I am trying to convey in this letter is that I have
thought the thing over as a cold outsider, and that it is in
this character that I am against replying to B.

I agree however wholly with all that H. says as to yr
draft reply. Yrs affec R. B. L.

Letter C, see p.
185

4, Bryanston St., Portman Sq.,W. Feb.
1, 1880

Dear Mr. Darwin,

Since sending off our last packet I bethought myself I shd
like to ask the first bystander I could meet how Butler's
letter struck him as regards the need of an answer, and so I went in
and shewed the Athenm to Pollock in this street. As an
accustomed literary man and man of the world I wanted to see whether he
wd agree w me.—But of course I did not tell him anything before he read
the article. I merely said when you have read it I want to ask yr
opinion on a certain point, and when he had read it my question was
does that in yr opinion need any answer? His reply was 1st. that he might
be prejudiced as he knew something of B.—but he was strong that it didn't
want answering (of course I didn't lead him to suppose it was any more
than a question from me personally).

pened—and also an art in Sat. Rev. on Butler's Book. B.,
he tells me, is known to be getting up a grand reply to all his critics
and he is making a point of getting their names. He wrote to the Saty w
this enquy but the Saty put him off with a formal refusal. All wh helps
to shew that he is a virulent Salamander of a man who will fight to the
end, and as P. said, his greatest joy wd be to get into a public
dispute w a man of eminence.

P., however, tho' aware of his character, was by no means
prejudiced agst his bks (he thinks them nonsense but very clever
nonsense) and his opinion on the question of a reply was I have no
doubt a dry opinion. I have since looked with a critical eye at yr
draft and I am only confirmed in my impression, for I do not find that
it, in substance, contains anything wh is not already in the sentence
quoted by B. from yr note. But while to the substance of your
explanation it adds nothing it gives B the most admirable chance for
another nasty letter inasmuch as it gives him new facts. At
present he knows, and need know, nothing of the mere mechanical detail
of the accident wh caused the omission. These you in fact give him. As
he is now he cannot say anything more! he has made the worst
of all he knows. But to a wretched unscrupulous word-fencer as he is yr
letter opens material for a wholly new attack, and if the Athm likes to
put it in, he can easily make it appear that there's something very
suspicious and mysterious in yr proceedings.

Given only that a man [that] is a blackguard and there is
no end to the stuff he mightn't write on such a theme. For
illustration's sake I have put down a few sentences, as they came into
my head, such as he might string together.

The fact is that such a story as that of the alterations
of the proofs in this case, cannot be made satisfactory
unless it is told in full: and of course to tell it in full wd be
ridiculous.

The main topic is itself a merely microscopic point, and
to go into the business wd be too intolerable.

But over and above all special considerations is the one
that a reply in such a case is necessarily an apologetic
process, and that you have nothing to apologise for.

I daresay much of this repeats Henrietta. In what she has
read to me I wholly agree.

R. B. LITCHFIELD

Sketch of imaginary reply of Butler's.
By R. B. Litchfield

Sir, When I wrote etc. last week I thought I knew all that
was likely to be known abt Mr. Darwin's extraordinary treatment of my
book, but his letter to you makes some most remarkable additions to the
strange story. Mr. D. had told me that it "never occurred to him" to
state etc. Never occurred to him!! When now it seems that it not only
occurred to him, but that he did state etc. etc. Stated it in
a printed preface, and afterwards, in some mysterious way, this
statement disappeared from the proof! Perhaps Mr. D. will complete the
story etc. etc. Sentences do not vanish out of a printed page by
accident only, etc. etc. He goes on to tell us that "it is an
illusion to suppose it cd make any diffce" etc. etc. It might
have been an illusion due to my ignorance but the details kindly given
by Mr. D. now shew it to be a fact that it did make a
difference. If no diffce why was the sentence expunged? If the excision
was an accident it is of course needless for Mr. D. to tell us that it
had nothing to do with Mr. Butler.—Accidents do not usually need to be
thus explained, etc. etc. Nor is a great Naturalist the man we shd
think likely wholly to forget! the act of cancelling his own deliberate
statements.

Then Mr. D. tells us that the addns were made
independently etc. Strange that an author of distinction shd be so
delightfully pliable in the hands of somebody else. Who

this somebody else might be, whether Dr. K. or etc. etc.
we are not told. And lastly Mr. D. is obligg eno to say that I do not
believe his delib assertion etc. I have not to my knowledge adopted
this severe estimate of Mr. D.'s veracity, but certainly if Mr. D.
wanted to create the incredulity wh he is so polite as to attribute to
me the best means of achieving that result wd be to supply me with more
of the explanations of wh he has given a sample in yr columns of Sty
last.

Letter D, undated,
see
p. 186

Henrietta
Litchfield to Charles Darwin

My dear Father,

R. was very late coming in so that we had rather a hurried
consultation over the letter and I did not thank you for caring to
consult us—which I do most heartily whatever you do with our advice.
You will see by my first letter which was written before I got yours
how sure I felt that you wd. not think of answering Butler.

I foresee one result of your letter that Butler will say
you have been guilty of another quibble,—first you say to him that it
never occurred to you to state that Krause had altered his article and
then that you actually had it in the proof sheets and as you say
accidentally omitted to publish it. Now Butler will say which of these
two statements are true—and so it gives him scope for a whole set of
fresh insults,—and with his clever pen he can make something very
disagreeable out of this. The world will only know or at any rate
remember that you and Butler had a controversy in which he will have
the last word. If they understand it at all they'll see that its
nothing whatever against you, but if they merely know that there have
been letters backwards and forwards they may think there is some ground
for Butler's accusation agst. you of jealousy of your grandfather.

If you leave the letter alone the facts are all there for
those who care to read them, and it remains that Butler said some nasty
spiteful things which you didn't care to answer. So Goodbye, dear
Father—you get enough advice from us in quantity.

Your most affec., H. E. L.

The Litchfields' approval was again solicited on the
question of submitting the question of a reply to T. H. Huxley.

Letter E, see p.
186

R. B. Litchfield to Charles Darwin

3 Feb. 1880 4
Bryanston St., Portman
Sq., W.

Dear Mr. Darwin,

I think Huxley's judgmt will be a safe one on the question
of replyg to Butler—unless it be perhaps that he is himself horribly
pugnacious and wd naturally be for fighting.

I still cannot frame to myself any answer wh wd
be of the slightest use, or logically sound, except it confine itself
to a mere reiteratn of what you've already told B. If such a reply
seems any good it might be in such form as I have put down on back of
this.

I do think it of the most supreme importance not
to allude to B's pretending to think you untrustworthy—and that any
reply shd be absolutely without feeling.

Always yrs affly, R. B. L.

Letter F, see p.
186

On back of same sheet is Litchfield's
suggested reply

EVOLUTION OLD AND NEW

Sir, I have read the statement by Mr. S. Butler wh
appeared in yr columns of Saty last under the above heading,

is to my having omitted to mention, in the preface to the
lately issued translatn of Dr. Krause's essay on Erasmus Darwin, that
his paper had been somewhat altered before being thus republished. As
Mr. Butler quotes my letter to him in wh I informed him that this
omission was accidental, and that it shd be corrected in case of the
little book reaching a second edition, I do not see that I need trouble
yr readers with any further observations on the matter.

Letter G, see p. 186

Emma's comments
to her
son George,
still abroad
(In private possession)

Down, Monday, Feb.
2,
1880

My dear George,

…We have been greatly excited by Butler's attack, w.
appeared in the last Ath. F. [ather] wrote an answer to it
and sent it up by John [the coachman] to shew it to R[ichard] and
Hen[rietta]. John brought back a most sensible letter from R. giving
all the reasons against taking any notice of it. R[ichard]'s letter is
most excellent and makes me astonished that so sensible a man can talk
such nonsense as he does sometimes.…It is an odious spiteful letter
[Butler's to the Athenæum ] but so tedious and confused in
its accusations, that no indifft person will have patience to master
it. As F[ather] had a stisfac. reply to make I was in favour of his
sending it; but I have changed my opinion and F[ather] is going to send
his reply and R[ichard]'s letter to Huxley and abide by his opinion.
Certainly nothing w. please Butler so m. as an answer from F[ather] to
which he cd. make a rejoinder and set up a Butler-Darwin controversy.
F[ather] was much bothered at first but will now cast it off his mind.

I have only a minute or two to thank you and Hen. most
warmly for all the trouble which you have taken. Your first letter
I think about the most sensible one I ever read. Your imaginary answer
for B. is splendid! I am almost converted not to answer and I did not
think I could be. Indeed I am converted—so almost is Mother—Leonard
partially—F[rank] still maintains that if it were his case he would
answer. We had thought of Huxley and I shall despatch by this post the Athenæum
and my answer to him, and I will enclose (for I think you could not
object) your first letter. I will not enclose 2nd letter, merely not to
trouble H. with reading so much. I hope to God Huxley will say No. We
do not agree about the 2 sentences to be cut out, if my answer is to be
printed.

You have both been very very kind to me. The affair has
pained me to a silly extent.

Yours affectionately, CH. DARWIN

Letter I

Written on South Kensington Science and
Art note-paper

T. H. Huxley to C. Darwin, in
answer to the question should Darwin answer the attack of Samuel
Butler's in the Athenæum. See p. 187 Festing
Jones Pamphlet.

Feb. 3, 1880

My dear Darwin,

I read Butler's letter and your draft—and Litchfield's
letter—last night; slept over them, and after lecturing about Dog-fish
and Chimaera (subjects which have a distinct

appropriateness to Butler) I have read them again.—And I
say without the least hesitation, burn your draft and take no notice
whatever of Mr. Butler until the next edition of your book comes
out—when the briefest possible note explanatory of the
circumstances—will be all that is necessary. Litchfield ought hereafter
to be called the 'judicious' as Hooker was (I don't mean Sir Joe but
the Divine); to my mind nothing can be sounder than his advice and "I
am a man of (sor)rows and acquainted with (coming to) grief."

I am astounded at Butler—who I thought was a gentleman
though his last book appeared to me to be supremely foolish.

Has Mivart bitten him and given him Darwinophobia?

Its a horrid disease and I would kill any son of a

I found running loose with it without mercy. But
don't you
worry with these things. Recollect what old Goethe said about his
Butlers and Mivarts:

"Hat doch der Wallfisch seine Laus
Muss auch die Meine haben."

We are as jolly as people can be who have been living in
the dark for a week and I hope you are all florishing. Ever yours, T.
H. H.

Butler's attacks were repeated with renewed vigour when he
published Unconscious Memory later in 1880, and the peace of
the Darwin family was again disturbed. Early in 1881 outside advice was
once more sought.

We have been having a great family talk and at last have
come to such a hopeless division of opinion that my Father has
commissioned me to write and ask you whether you wd. be so very kind as
to consider the following question and give him your judgment as to
what he had better do.…

The question is as to the advisability or necessity of his
meeting in any way Butler's allegations that he has made a false
statement in his preface to the Life of Erasmus Darwin which
Butler considers does him great injury.…

The only point which some of us think my Father shd. meet
is the alleged implication in the preface to the Life of Eras.
Darwin that Krause's original article in Kosmos was not
altered or added to before translation.…

Two or three of my brothers much wish that a fly leaf
should be inserted in the unsold copies of the Life of Erasmus D.
stating as an erratum on p. 1 10 lines from top that Krause's article
in Kosmos was altered and enlarged before it was sent to Mr.
Dallas for translation.

My husband and I are very strong on the other hand that
nothing whatever should be done.

My brother Leonard will be the Devil's Advocate and will
send you what he has to say.…

Henrietta Litchfield then states in three more pages her
own and her husband's views.

I hope that you will not object to my saying by way of
preface to my answer to your question that it would always give me
pride and pleasure if I could be of any service to you. I owe (like
many more distinguished men) so great a debt to your writings that I
should be glad to make the most trifling return: and I have (if I may
say so) that personal respect for you which every one must feel who
knows you at all.

When you tell me that it pains you to be called a liar in
your old age, I can quite understand it. To hear you called a liar
makes me wish to give somebody such a slap in the face as he would have
cause to remember. But I also reflect that you and your friends are
bound also to remember your position and to avoid undignified
squabbles. After all a man who insults you in that way is only
exhibiting his own want of any claims to respect.

My opinion about the matter is perfectly distinct and
unhesitating. I think that you should take no further notice of Mr.
Butler whatever.

Perhaps it would be wiser to say nothing more: but I give
you my reasons on another sheet, wh. you can read or put in the fire as
you please.

Your book shall be put in the most honourable place
in my
library. When I have a chance of seeing you, I shall ask you to write
my name as there are one or two little Stephens who may someday be
pleased of any token of your esteem for their papa.

I think that Mr. Darwin should take no further notice of
Mr. Butler. My reasons are as follows.

Butler has deprived himself of any claim to personal
consideration by his want of common courtesy. Any injury done to him
should of course be redressed. But he must not be taken as a judge of
what constitutes an injury. Had he kept within the bounds of courtesy,
it might have been proper to consider his fancies as well as his
arguments. As he has exceeded those bounds so greatly, the only
question is whether any wrong is being done to him. Now, in my opinion,
there is no real injury whatever. If the inaccuracy in the preface
injures anyone, it injures Mr. Darwin: for it takes no notice of the
revision (and presumable improvement) of Krause's article. Every
statement bearing upon Butler would remain absolutely unaffected
whether it were or were not noticed in the preface. When I reprint
articles from reviews, I revise them as a matter of course and without
thinking myself bound to give any notice of the fact. The publication
of Mr. Darwin's letter and the promise to introduce a change in future
editions is, in my opinion, amply sufficient for any purpose. But in
any case, Butler is not injured. He only comes in for a reference, not
promised in the preface. This is, I think, the plainer from Butler's
own chapter. He does not really even allege any injury to himself. The
true nature of his complaint is clear. He says himself (p. 70) that Mr.
Darwin did not think him worth notice and did not venture to attack him
openly. This is the whole point and substance of his argument. The
obvious truth is that his vanity has been wounded. When he saw the book
advertized, he expected a formal reply. He found only the allusion at
the end of Krause's article, and the reference to the book in the
preface. When he discovered the inaccuracy, he imme-

diately assumed that there must be malice. There was a
plot to injure him by underhand methods. How else could anybody fail to
give a serious reply to so terrible an antagonist?

This is really his whole case. If any change were to be
introduced in consequence, it would not be in any way to Butler's
advantage. The whole point of it would be to relieve Mr. Darwin
from a possible imputation. It would do Butler no good, but it would
deprive him of a pretext for charging Mr. Darwin with ill faith.

The whole question, therefore, to my mind comes to this:
whether it is worth while for Mr. Darwin to do anything more than he
has done in order to avoid this possible misconstruction? I say no,
first because Mr. Darwin has done quite enough already and has given
ample publicity to the facts. Secondly, because the misconstruction is
so absurd that nobody could fall into it, unless he were blinded by
wounded vanity. It is not conceivable that Mr. Darwin wished to sink
the fact of Butler having attacked him, for he mentions Butler's book:
not that he thought him worth a serious answer, for he only publishes
Krause's contemptuous reference: and the slip of the pen upon wh. this
absurd theory rests is acknowledged in a letter published in the Athenæum,
and in Butler's own book. I cannot think, therefore, that the
correction is necessary in Mr. Darwin's interest, nor is it called for
by justice to Butler: and to make any more fuss about such an
infinitessimal detail would look like a consciousness of some
appreciable injustice. LESLIE STEPHEN

The following letter was written in 1904 when Mrs.
Litchfield was preparing her Emma Darwin for the press. The
inclusion of some account of the Samuel Butler misunderstanding was
evidently under discussion, and

though Frank had all along advised coming into the open
with a fuller explanation than was given at the time, at this
date—twenty-four years after the original rift—he is recommending
reticence. Probably he considered that the letters suggested for
inclusion would not in themselves give a fair view of the whole
incident.

Letter L, see page 194

Francis Darwin to Henrietta Litchfield
his sister

Jan. 23, '04 11,
Egerton Place, S.W.

Dear Hen,

…I should say the Butler row might be left out with great
advantage. I left it all out of More Letters.—There was a
sort of truce between Butler and our side, and now he is dead; and
after all I now think he had some cause of complaint though he entirely
lost his head and behaved abominably. Huxley's letter is good and I
quite understand your liking to publish it. But I still think I would
leave it out…I am almost sure that L. Huxley consulted me about
referring to Butler in his Life of T. H. H., and that I asked
him not to. If so it would hardly do to print T. H. H.'s letter now.

I see there is no mention of Butler in Huxley's Life
which I have now looked at.…

Yr. affec., F. D.

No mention of the quarrel is made in Emma Darwin.

So in the end Francis Darwin, Charles's biographer,
thought Butler had a real cause of complaint. The above documents which
passed to and fro amongst the Generals of the Darwin camp, must help
posterity to judge the protagonists, remote from the field of battle.
The

turmoil of indecision behind the scenes, and the anxiety
to do the proper thing, give a picture in these letters of an age gone
by; in Darwin's quiet Headquarters at Down, there was time for
irresolution and the writing of letters; whilst the rallying of
relations and friends to give him unanimous support reflects his
endearing gentle qualities.

Butler foresaw in the last lines of his Sonnet, that the
ghost of his quarrel with Darwin would not soon be laid. For even on
the "lips of living men" these two Victorian figures cannot be wholly
reconciled. Both were rebels against contemporary opinion; Butler
stands as the perpetual revolutionary, who only turned against Darwin
after Darwin had become the acknowledged prophet. Darwin was rebelling
against current biological concepts and delivered Man into the
evolutionary machine; he rejected all easy speculators as ephemeral,
and to him Butler and his theories remained ephemeral. Indeed in Life
and Habit Butler had gone to perverse and deliberate lengths to
define his anti-scientific position. He wrote:—"I know nothing about
science, and it is well that there should be no mistake on this head; I
neither know, nor want to know, more detail than is necessary to enable
me to give a fairly broad and comprehensive view of my subject."

Butler's satirical genius lashed the shams and hypocrisies
of his time. His writings on quasi-scientific themes as well as his
philosophy on the art of living, were based on his inward experience,
in revolt against

fact-finding materialism. In Natural Selection and its
dependence on chance variation for its effectiveness,—though Darwin
himself vacillated on this point as Butler very well knew,—Butler saw a
complete surrender to a mechanical world, with Man as the supreme
machine, and all effect of Mind and its striving ruled out as a guiding
force. He formed his theory of Mind and Memory in the speculative
manner of the previous century, following and extending the ideas of
Lamarck and Dr. Erasmus Darwin, with acknowledged indebtedness to his
own contemporary, Dr. Hering. Butler paraded the old theories in a new
guise, and took on the role of the maltreated, posthumous "enfant
terrible" of the Physico-theologians of the 18th century. Butler's
intervention into the scientific fold with this hybrid of science and
philosophy could not be tolerated by the new biological school of
Darwin and Huxley.

There is a close connection between this quarrel and
Darwin's two disclaimers that I have discussed earlier; firstly his
rejection of his grandfather's influence on his own views, and secondly
his half-hearted denial that ideas of evolution were "in the air". But
it was the force of Charles Darwin's simplicity and single-minded
scientific purpose that binds these three affairs together; he rejected
his grandfather's influence because he rejected Erasmus Darwin's
speculative method; he denied that evolutionary ideas were ripening,
because these floating ideas were not yet substantiated by evidence;
and he found Butler's writing of no importance because Butler again did
not look to the facts. For

Charles Darwin had become the conscious exponent of
evolutionary theory in a new form, and watched in his last years the
beginnings of its application to wider fields of knowledge. Old facts
had to be re-examined to understand their evolutionary sense; Darwin
himself undertook his botanical work to look for this new meaning in
botanical detail. His repudiation of those who spin their theories
without the constant discipline of factual detail, was the inevitable
concomitant of his scientific faith.

REFERENCES TO OTHER WORKS

Memoir of Samuel Butler, in two volumes. By Henry
Festing Jones. Macmillan & Co., 1919. The quarrel is dealt with at
great length, and contains the substance of the 1911 pamphlet, here
reprinted.

The Earnest Atheist, a Study of Samuel Butler,
by
Malcolm Muggeridge. Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1936.

Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, in three
volumes, by
Francis Darwin. John Murray, 1887. Has only the briefest mention of the
quarrel in Vol. III, p. 220, and there is no mention of Samuel Butler
in More Letters.

Samuel Butler states his case in the following books,
besides his letters to the Athenæum and Nature. Life
and Habit, 1877. Evolution Old and New, 1879. Unconscious
Memory, 1880. Luck or Cunning? 1885-6.

THE FOLLOWING unpublished letter from Dr. Erasmus
Darwin
to his son Robert, Charles's father, throws light on the blunt, direct
character of Erasmus and gives his views on some medical questions and
on alcoholism and its transmission. I include it here as it shows on
what terms the father and son were; the letter is an answer to what
must have been an enquiry from Robert into the facts about his own
mother's death and about his grandfather, Mr. Howard. In 1792, when
this letter was written, Erasmus was sixty-one, the first Mrs. Darwin,
Robert's mother, had been dead twenty-two years and Erasmus had
re-married. Robert was twenty-six, and four years later he married
Susannah Wedgwood, Charles's mother, so it is probable that his letter
of enquiry had some eugenic intention, as his father clearly saw.

Derby Jan 5 [1792]

Dear Robert

I do not remember your having before asked me the
questions about Mr. Howard and your mother; which

I am sure I would openly without any scruple have
answered. The late Mr. Howard was never to my knowledge in the least
insane, he was a drunkard both in public and private—and when he went
to London he became connected with a woman and lived a deba[u]ched life
in respect to drink, hence he had always the Gout of which he died but
without any the least symptom of either insanity or epilepsy, but from
debility of digestion and Gout as other drunkards die.

In respect to your mother, the following is the true
history, which I shall neither aggravate nor diminish anything. Her
mind was truly amiable and her person handsome, which you may perhaps
in some measure remember.

She was seized with pain on the left side about the lower
edge of the liver, this pain was followed in about an hour by violent
convulsions, and these sometimes relieved by great doses of opium, and
some wine, which induced intoxication. At other times a temporary
dilirium, or what by some might be termed insanity, came on for half an
hour, and then she became herself again, and the paroxysm was
terminated. This disease is called hysteria by some people. I think it
allied to epilepsy.

This kind of disease had several returns in the course of
4 or 6 years and she then took to drinking spirit and water to relieve
the pain, and I found (when it was too late) that she had done this in
great quantity, the liver became swelled, and she gradually sunk, a few
days before her death, she bled at the mouth, and whenever she had a
scratch, as some hepatic patients do.

All the drunken diseases are hereditary in some degree,
and I believe epilepsy and insanity are produced originally by
drinking. I have seen epilepsy produced so very often—one sober
generation cures these dr[unkards] frequently, which one drunken one
has created.

I now know many families, who had insanity in one side,
and the children now old people have no symptom of it. If it was
otherwise, there would not be a family in the kingdom without epileptic
gouty or insane people in it.

I well remember when your mother fainted away in these
hysteric fits (which she often did) that she told me, you, who was not
then 2 or 2½ years old, run into the kitchen to call the maid-servant
to her assistance.

I have told everything just as I recollect it, as I think
it a matter of no consequence to yourself or your brother, who both
live temperate lives, keeping betwixt all extreams.

I have lately taken to drink two glasses of home-made wine
with water at my dinner, instead of water alone, as I found myself
growing weak about two months ago; but am recovered and only now feel
the approaches of old age.

I shall not mention your letter to Erasmus, you may always
depend on secrecy when you require it.

AT THE beginning of his Beagle Journal Charles
Darwin wrote an account of how the Wedgwoods—and especially his Uncle
Josiah—turned the balance in favour of his acceptance of the position
of Naturalist offered by Captain Fitz-Roy.

"I had been wandering about North Wales on a geological
tour with Professor Sedgwick when I arrived home on Monday 29th of
August. My sisters first informed me of the letters from Prof. Henslow
and Mr. Peacock offering to me the place in the Beagle which
I now fill. I immediately said I would go; but the next morning,
finding my Father so much averse to the whole plan, I wrote to Mr.
Peacock to refuse his offer. On the last day of August I went to Maer,
where everything soon bore a different appearance. I found every member
of the family so strongly on my side, that I determined to make another
effort. In the evening I drew up a list of my Father's objections, to
which Uncle Jos wrote his opinion and answer. This we sent off to
Shrewsbury early the next morning and I went out shooting. About 10
o'clock Uncle Jos sent me a message to say he in-

tended going to Shrewsbury and offering to take me with
him. When we arrived there, all things were settled, and my Father most
kindly gave his consent."

Here follow the letters sent back from Maer to
Shrewsbury
for Dr. Robert's consideration.

(Maer) August 31st,
1831

My dear Father,

I am afraid I am going to make you again very
uncomfortable—but upon consideration I think you will excuse me once
again stating my opinions on the offer of the voyage. My excuse and
reason is the different way all the Wedgwoods view the subject from
what you and my sisters do.

I have given Uncle Jos, what I fervently trust is an
accurate and full list of your objections, and he is kind enough to
give his opinion on all. The list and his answers will be enclosed, but
may I beg of you one favour, it will be doing me the greatest kindness
if you will send me a decided answer—Yes or No—; If the latter I should
be most ungrateful if I did not implicitly yield to your better
judgment and to the kindest indulgence which you have shown me all
through my life,—and you may rely upon it I will never mention the
subject again; if your answer should be Yes, I will go directly to
Henslow and consult deliberately with him and then come to Shrewsbury.
The danger appears to me and all the Wedgwoods not great—the expence
cannot be serious, and the time I do not think anyhow, would be more
thrown away than if I staid at home.—But pray do not consider that I am
so bent on going, that I would for one single moment hesitate
if you thought that after a short period you should continue
uncomfortable.—I must again state I cannot think it would unfit me here-

after for a steady life.—I do hope this letter will not
give you much uneasiness.—I send it by the car tomorrow morning; if you
make up your mind directly will you send me an answer on the following
day by the same means. If this letter should not find you at home, I
hope you will answer as soon as you conveniently can.—

I do not know what to say about Uncle Jos' kindness, I
never can forget how he interests himself about me.

Believe me, my dear Father,

Your affectionate son, CHARLES
DARWIN

These were Dr. Robert's objections to the voyage, as
reported to Uncle Jos by Charles.

1. Disreputable to my character as a Clergyman hereafter.

2. A wild scheme.

3. That they must have offered to many others before me
the place of
Naturalist.

4. And from its not being accepted there must be some
serious objection
to the vessel or expedition.

5. That I should never settle down to a steady life
hereafter.

6. That my accommodations would be most uncomfortable.

7. That you, that is, Dr. Darwin, should consider it as
again changing
my profession.

8. That it would be a useless undertaking.

Also enclosed, was Josiah's letter to Dr. Robert,
with
"Read this last" in Charles's handwriting.

Maer, August 31st,
1831

My dear Doctor,

I feel the responsibility of your application to me on the
offer that has been made to Charles.…Charles has put

down what he conceives to be your principle objections,
and I think the best course I can take will be to state what occurs to
me upon each of them.

1. I should not think it would be in any degree
disreputable to his character as a Clergyman. I should on the contrary
think the offer honourable to him; and the pursuit of Natural History,
though certainly not professional, is very suitable to a clergyman.

2. I hardly know how to meet this objection, but he would
have definite
objects upon which to employ himself, and might acquire and strengthen
habits of application, and I should think would be as likely to do so
as in any way in which he is likely to pass the next two years at home.

3. The notion did not occur to me in reading the letters;
and on
reading them again with that object in my mind I see no ground for it.

4. I cannot conceive that the Admiralty would send out a
bad vessel on
such a service. As to objections to the expedition, they will differ in
each man's case, and nothing would, I think, be inferred in Charles's
case, if it were known that others had objected.

5. You are a much better judge of Charles's character than
I can be. If
on comparing this mode of spending the next two years with the way in
which he will probably spend them if he does not accept this offer, you
think him more likely to be rendered [un]steady, and unable to settle,
it is undoubtedly a weighty objection. Is it not the case that sailors
are prone to settle in domestic and quiet habits?

6. I can form no opinion on this further than that if
appointed by the
Admiralty he will have a claim to be as well accommodated as the vessel
will allow.

7. If I saw Charles now absorbed in professional studies I
should
probably think it would not be advisable to

interrupt them; but this is not, and I think, will not be
the case with him. His present pursuit of knowledge is in the same
track as he would have to follow in the expedition.

8. The undertaking would be useless as regards his profession, but
looking upon him as a man of enlarged curiosity, it affords him such an
opportunity of seeing men and things as happens to few. You will bear
in mind that I have had very little time for consideration, and that
you and Charles are the persons who must decide.

THE FOLLOWING notes in Charles Darwin's hand were
hurriedly scrawled in pencil on scraps of paper; one is on a letter
addressed to him whilst he was living at 36 Great Marlborough Street.
The writing of the notes must therefore have been in one of the years
1837 or '38. He was married to Emma Wedgwood on January 29th, 1839. How
these youthful questionings escaped destruction cannot now be known.
Perhaps they fell into the hands of Emma herself?

Work
finished

Work
finished

If not marry
TRAVEL? Europe— Yes? America????
If I travel it must be exclusively
geological — United States — Mexico.

Depend upon health and
vigour and how far I become zoological. If I don't travel—Work at
transmission of Species—microscope—simplest forms of
life—Geology—Oldest formations?? Some experiments—physiolo-

If marry—means limited—
Feel
duty to work for money. London life, nothing but Society, no country,
no tours, no large Zoolog: collect., no books. — Cambridge
Professorship, either Geolog: or Zoolog:—comply with all above
requisites—I couldn't systematize zoologically so well.
But better than hibernating
in country—and where? Better even than near London country

(B). Live in London—for where else possible—in
small house near Regents Park—keep horses—take Summer tours collect
specimens some line of Zoolog: speculations of Geograph: range and
geological general works—systematize and study affinities.

house—I could
not indolently take country house and do nothing— Could I live in
London
like a prisoner? If I were moderately rich I would live in London, with
pretty big house and do as (B)—but could I act thus with children and
poor—? No— Then where live in country near London; better; but great
obstacles to science and poverty.
Then Cambridge, better, but
fish out of water, not being Professor and poverty. Then Cambridge
Professorship,—and make best of it—do duty as such and work at spare
times—My destiny will be Camb. Prof. or poor man; outskirts of
London—some small square etc.—and work as well as I can.
I have so much more
pleasure in direct observation, that I could not go on as Lyell does,
correcting and adding up new information to old train, and I do not see
what line can be followed by man tied down to London.—In
country—experiment and observations on lower animals,—more space—

old age) who
will feel interested in one, object to be beloved and played
with—better than a dog anyhow—Home, and someone to take care of
house—Charms of music and female chit-chat. These things good for one's
health. Forced to visit and receive relations but terrible loss of
time.

My God, it is intolerable
to think of spending one's whole life, like a neuter bee, working,
working and nothing after all.—
No, no won't do.—
Imagine living all one's day solitarily in smoky dirty London
House.—Only picture to yourself a nice soft wife on a sofa with good
fire, and books and music perhaps—compare this vision with the dingy
reality of Grt Marlboro' St. Marry—Marry—Marry Q.E.D.

What is
the use
of working without sympathy from near and dear friends—who are near and
dear friends to the old except relatives.
Freedom to go where one liked
—Choice of Society and little of it.
Conversation of clever men at clubs.—
Not forced to visit
relatives, and to bend in every trifle—to have the expense and anxiety
of children—perhaps quarrelling.Loss of time—cannot read in the evenings—fatness and
idleness —anxiety and responsibility—
less money for books etc—if
many
children forced to gain one's bread.—(But then it is very bad for one's
health to work too much)
Perhaps my wife won't like London; then the sentence is banishment and
degradation with indolent idle fool—

On the reverse side of the page
comes the
summing up

It being proved necessary to marry—When? Soon or Late. The
Governor says soon for otherwise bad if one has children—one's
character is more flexible—one's feelings more lively, and if one does
not marry soon, one misses so much good pure happiness.—

But then if I married tomorrow: there would be an infinity
of trouble and expense in getting and furnishing a house,—fighting
about no Society—morning calls—awkwardness—loss of time every
day—(without one's wife was

an angel and made one keep industrious)—Then how should I
manage all my business if I were obliged to go every day walking with
my wife.—Eheu!! I never should know French,—or see the Continent,—or go
to America, or go up in a Balloon, or take solitary trip in Wales—poor
slave, you will be worse than a negro—And then horrid poverty (without
one's wife was better than an angel and had money)—Never mind my
boy—Cheer up—One cannot live this solitary life, with groggy old age,
friendless and cold and childless staring one in one's face, already
beginning to wrinkle. Never mind, trust to chance—keep a sharp look
out.—There is many a happy slave—

COPIES OF two letters written by Mrs. Darwin to her
husband, both annotated by him, found amongst her papers after her
death. The first, undated, is on a sheet of old-fashioned note-paper,
and was written shortly after their marriage, as Charles Darwin states
in the Autobiography. The second was written in or before
1861, when Charles dated his added note. Mrs. Darwin's writing is neat
and without corrections, suggesting a copy from a draft. Written at the
end of each are a few lines by Charles Darwin.

LETTER ONE

The state of mind that I wish to preserve with respect to
you, is to feel that while you are acting conscientiously and sincerely
wishing and trying to learn the truth, you cannot be wrong, but there
are some reasons that force themselves upon me, and prevent myself from
being always able to give myself this comfort. I daresay you have often
thought of them before, but I will write down what has been in my head,
knowing that my own dearest will indulge me.

Your mind and time are full of the most interesting
subjects and thoughts of the most absorbing kind, viz. following up
your own discoveries—but which make it very difficult for you to avoid
casting out as interruptions other sorts of thoughts which have no
relation to what you are pursuing, or to be able to give your whole
attention to both sides of the question.

There is another reason which would have a great effect on
a woman, but I don't know whether it wd. so much on a man. I mean E.1
whose understanding you have such a very high opinion of and whom you
have so much affection for, having gone before you—is it not likely to
have made it easier to you and to have taken off some of that dread
fear which the feeling of doubting first gives and which I do not think
an unreasonable or superstitious feeling. It seems to me also that the
line of your pursuits may have led you to view chiefly the difficulties
on one side, and that you have not had time to consider and study the
chain of difficulties on the other, but I believe you do not consider
your opinion as formed. May not the habit in scientific pursuits of
believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in
other things which cannot be proved in the same way, and which if true
are likely to be above our comprehension. I should say also there is a
danger in giving up revelation which does not exist on the other side,
that is the fear of ingratitude in casting off what has been done for
your benefit as well as for that of all the world and which ought to
make you still more careful, perhaps even fearful lest you should not
have taken all the pains you could to judge truly. I do not know
whether this is arguing as if one side were true and the other false,
which I meant to avoid, but I think not. I do not quite agree with you
in

1 Erasmus, Charles's elder
brother. She means that Erasmus had preceded Charles in the matter of
doubt and unbelief.—N. B.

what you once said that luckily there were no doubts
as to
how one ought to act. I think prayer is an instance to the contrary, in
one case it is a positive duty and perhaps not in the other. But I
daresay you meant in actions which concern others and then I agree with
you almost if not quite. I do not wish for any answer to all this—it is
a satisfaction to me to write it, and when I talk to you about it I
cannot say exactly what I wish to say, and I know you will have
patience with your own dear wife. Don't think that it is not my affair
and that it does not much signify to me. Everything that concerns you
concerns me and I should be most unhappy if I thought we did not belong
to each other for ever. I am rather afraid my own dear Nigger will
think I have forgotten my promise not to bother him, but I am sure he
loves me, and I cannot tell him how happy he makes me and how dearly I
love him and thank him for all his affection which makes the happiness
of my life more and more every day.

When I am dead, know
that many times, I
have kissed and cryed
over this. C. D.

LETTER TWO

I cannot tell you the compassion I have felt for all your
suffering for these weeks past that you have had so many drawbacks. Nor
the gratitude I have felt for the cheerful and affectionate looks you
have given me when I know you have been miserably uncomfortable.

My heart has often been too full to speak or take any
notice. I am sure you know I love you well enough to believe that I
mind your suffering nearly as much as I should

my own and I find the only relief to my own mind is to
take it as from God's hand, and to try to believe that all suffering
and illness is meant to help us to exalt our minds and to look forward
with hope to a future state. When I see your patience, deep compassion
for others, self command and above all gratitude for the smallest thing
done to help you I cannot help longing that these precious feelings
should be offered to Heaven for the sake of your daily happiness. But I
find it difficult enough in my own case. I often think of the words
"Thou shalt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee." It
is feeling and not reasoning that drives one to prayer.

I feel presumptuous in writing this to you. I feel in my
inmost heart your admirable qualities and feelings and all I would hope
is that you would direct them upwards, as well as to one who values
them above everything in the world. I shall keep this by me till I feel
cheerful and comfortable again about you but it has passed through my
mind often lately so I thought I would write it partly to relieve my
own mind.

...

God Bless you C. D. 1861

These letters are printed in Emma Darwin, Vol.
II, John Murray, 1915 pp. 173-176. Mrs. Litchfield writes of her
mother:—

In our childhood and youth she was not only
sincerely religious—this she always was in the true sense of the
word—but definite in her beliefs. She went regularly to church and took
the Sacrament. She read the Bible with us and taught us a simple
Unitarian Creed, though we were baptized

and confirmed in the Church of England. In her youth
religion must have largely filled her life, and there is evidence in
the papers she left that it distressed her in her early married life to
know that my father did not share her faith. She wrote two letters to
him on the subject. He speaks in his autobiography of 'her beautiful
letter to me, safely preserved, shortly after our marriage'.

HEALTH ANXIETIES haunt the pages of the Autobiography,
yet Charles Darwin's many medical advisers never reached definite
conclusions as to the cause of his long bouts of illness. No diagnosis
was ever made of a causal organic disorder. Since his death biographers
and doctors alike have discussed the emphasis on ill-health, so
apparent in his own personal writings and in those of Emma his wife,
but there remains no concensus of opinion as to the cause of his
symptoms. The nausea, giddyness, insomnia and debility from which he
suffered, follow the now familiar pattern of the ills of other eminent
Victorians, with the Victorian Hydropathic Establishment, the sofa and
the shawl as characteristic hall-marks. Charles Darwin's forty years of
invalid existence, moreover, were an unexpected sequel to his youthful
vigour, for his strength and endurance were well above the average, as
Captain Fitz-Roy has recorded in his accounts of various incidents
during the Beagle Voyage.

Yet health anxieties did trouble Charles Darwin even in
the early days before the voyage, so that his marriage to a deeply
sympathetic wife can hardly have done

more than increase a deep-seated tendency. Her
over-solicitude helped to cast that faint aura of glory on the Symptom,
an
attitude that was carried on into adult life by several of their
children.

Many theories have been put forward to account for
Darwin's years of suffering, ranging from the possibility of
appendicitis, a duodenal ulcer, pyorrhea, or the damaging effects of
sea-sickness during the voyage; but recent emphasis has been in the
direction of neurotic or psychotic causes.

I am not qualified to discuss these different points of
view, but I give references and very brief summaries for those who may
want to explore this field further.

Dr. Alvarez examines the symptoms of Darwin's illness, and
deduces from the fact that no physician could discover any organic
source, that "his troubles were functional and due to an inherited
peculiarity of the nervous system." He found evidence of psychological
instability among his ancestors, and concludes that he had a "poor
nervous heredity on both sides."

Psychology of the Revolutionary," before it appeared in
shorter form in Biology and Human Affairs.

Dr. Good finds that Charles Darwin's illness "was
compounded of depressive, obsessional, anxiety and hysterical symptoms,
which for the most part co-existed…". He finds "evidence that
unmistakably points" to these symptoms being a "distorted expression of
the agression, hate, resentment, felt at an unconscious level, by
Darwin towards his tyrannical father…" In Dr. Good's opinion, his forty
years of ill-health were the punishment for his revolt.

In 1946 Dr. Hubble wrote:—"Charles Darwin's illness, then,
arose from the suppression and non-recognition of a painful emotion.
Such an emotion is always compounded of fear, guilt or hate…in Charles
Darwin this emotion arose from his relationship with his father." In
the last two references Dr. Hubble has added to this theme, and
references 4, (c), entitled "The Life of the Shawl", gave rise to the
discussion in the Lancet under the same title.

5. KEMPF, E. J. Psychopathology. London, 1921,
p. 208.

Dr. Kempf takes Charles Darwin's medical history to show
that affective cravings brought about by resistence to parental
coercion cause after-anxiety; these demonstrate the mechanisms, in his
view, "of the prolonged struggles to sublimate affective needs." Dr.
Kempf stresses the loss of Charles's mother, who died when he was eight
years old. Kempf also stresses Dr. Robert Darwin's authoritarian
attitude towards his family, noting at the same time his unusual
insight in dealing with patients. Kempf says:—"he practised the present
psycho-analytical principle of inducing an affective catharsis and
readjustment in his

patients as a method of treating the distress caused by
affective suppression-anxiety."

It seems as though the last word has not yet been written
on the problem of Charles Darwin's ill-health. One thing is clear; he
realised with deep insight how his own profit and loss account stood
when he wrote near the end of the Autobiography:—"Even
ill-health, though it has annihilated several years of my life, has
saved me from the distractions of society and amusement."

Page and line references to the
more important previously omitted passages

Minus numerals indicate lines
from bottom of page

p. 21, line -5 to line -2. "I have heard … my case.
p. 22, line 6 to line 10. "I believe … invalid state."
p. 22, line 12 to line 14. "Before going … plan answered."
p. 22, line -10 to line -4. "Caroline was … she might say."
p. 24, line 1 to line -8. "About this time … run so fast!"
p. 30, line 7 to p. 31, line 3. "My Father … patient bled."
p. 31, line 12 to p. 32, line 2. "Family quarrels … ever afterwards."
p. 33, line 12 to line -8. "A connection … least know."
p. 43, line 1 to line 4. "nor to my … whole lives."
p. 43, line 9 to line 12. "The above sketch … no merit."
p. 45, line 5 to line 8. "Some of … distinguished."
p. 48, line -5 to line -4. "but was superficial … tongue."
p. 53, line -10 to line -9. "He had … gentleman."
p. 57, line 9 to line 14. "It never struck … incredible."
p. 66, line -1 to p. 67, line 4. "At first … humour."
p. 73, line 11 to line 14. "This was shown … offended him."
p. 73, line -12 to line -6. "The junior … common sense."
p. 73, line -2 to line -1. "For when … unreasonable."
p. 74, line -12 to p. 76, line -7. "I remember … appearance."
p. 76, line -5 to line -4. "though … blemishes."
p. 79, line 4 to line 6. "The primeval … civilised man."

p. 84, line 6. "facile … botanicorum."
p. 85, line -10 to line -5. "from its manifestly … barbarian."
p. 86, line -12 to line -8. "Beautiful … allegories."
p. 87, line 4 to line 11. "and have never … doctrine."
p. 87, line -1. "Everything … laws."
p. 90, line 14 to line -11. "A being … endless time?"
p. 90, line -1 to p. 91, line 8. "But it cannot … to arise."
p. 93, line 10 to p. 93, line -1. "May not these … a snake."
p. 94, line 5 to p. 96 line 12. "A man who has no assured … Redeemer
liveth."
p. 96, line -9 to p. 98 line 3. "You all know … sweet ways."
p. 100, line -14 to line -11. "On such … standing up."
p. 101, line 4 to line -15. "He had … strength failed."
p. 102, line 9 to p. 103 line -14. "All the leading … glory."
p. 103, line -12 to line -10. "And before … morning."
p. 103, line -8 to line -7. "He never … biology."
p. 104, line 4 to line 6. "who was … five years,"
p. 104, line 6 to line 13. "I suppose … this country."
p. 104, line -10 to p. 107 line 7. "He was rather … mankind."
p. 107, line -14 to line -8. "He was very … dirty."
p. 108, line 1 to p. 109 line -11. "I used to call … speaking of H.
Spencer."
p. 110, line 5 to line 6. "H. Spencer … of it!"
p. 110, line 13 to line -15. "What he … conversation."
p. 111, line -2 to p. 112, line 4. "I met … very premature."
p. 112, line 6 to line 10. "I have heard … whom I knew,"
p. 114, line -1 to p. 115 line 1. "Who never … they can."
p. 115, line 14 to line -6. "Whilst I was … children."
p. 125, line -1 to p. 126, line 4. "I must, however … lawyer."
p. 129, line 15 to line -15. "on the … Cucurbitacean plant."
p. 134, line -4 to p. 135 line 11. "Owing … Louse."
p. 144, line -15 to line -10. "I informed … be sold."
p. 145. The last sentence in italics.